Gen 13: A Lyon in Winter
by Yaguara
Summary: Kat and friends must rush to the rescue of another Gen 13 escapee. But dangers both forseen and unforseen await them.
1. Chapter 1

_Obviously I do not own Gen 13 or any of its characters. Nor do I claim any of the material previously developed by Thescarredman which inspired this story. My knowledge of the Gen 13 comics is fairly limited and much of the material is extrapolated from the previous work by other fan-fiction authors. I do not expect any reviews but you are welcome to add some should you wish. This is more for the practice of writing and to tell a story that wandered into my head one day._

Escondido, California

"Hey Bro! You gotta see this." Eddie was sprawled out on one of the long sofas in the loft area. He had his laptop open and one shoe off. His backpack was lying in a heap on the floor in front of him with a handful of comics spilling out of it.

Bobbie and Sarah had just come down from sunning themselves on the roof in the warm California sunshine. When Bobby paused to ask "Whatcha got?" Sarah continued walking trailing Bobby's hand with her fingers still loosely clasped in his.

When he turned to look at her she said, "I'm going to go grab some lemonade. You stay – I'll be right back." She glanced down at Eddie and couldn't help wrinkling her nose at his one dirty sock. "Did you want anything?"

Eddie held up a glass of Anna's finest that had been sitting on the floor hidden by the dropped boot. "No, I'm good." As Sarah disappeared downstairs Bobby plopped himself down next to Eddie and peered over his shoulder. Eddie was streaming videos from YouTube again. This time the window showed a pair of teenagers flinging themselves off of roofs and grabbing the railings around stairwells. As they watched the kids began scrambling up walls and over cars. When Bobby whistled over one particularly daring stunt where a kid in a baggy track suit leapt down a flight of stairs by running and bouncing off the wall Eddie said, "It's called Free Running. It was developed in France. It ain't skating but it's still pretty cool, huh?"

"Damn, man. That's crazy. Why do they do it?"

Eddie shrugged, "Why climb the mountain, bro? Cuz, it's there. This French medic developed it as a way to get to injured soldiers quicker. Called it Parkour. It caught on and kids started adding these freestyle moves. Dude, here she comes." Eddie gave Bobby a poke in the side and inclined his head towards the stairs. Sarah was just coming back up with a tall glass of lemonade in each hand. The stunning girl captured their attention and took their breaths away. Her long black hair slid back and forth across her shoulders like silk. It perfectly framed her fantasy face and fell over her deeply tanned shoulders. She wore a bright yellow bikini top and the matching bottoms were hidden by the pearl white beach towel she had wrapped seductively around her hips. Bobby and Eddie were mesmerized by the sway of those sensuous hips as she seemed to take each step individually. As she approached them her eyes smoldered with a mixture of pure sensuality and unbridled mischief.

"Thanks Sarah," Bobby said somewhat breathlessly as she handed him one of the glasses bending at the waist as she did so. The chilled glass only served to heighten his awareness of the heat of her skin.

"Yeah," Eddie said in the same tone, "thanks." Sarah chuckled and swatted him on the top of his head.

"That wasn't for you." She said playfully.

"Maybe not but it was still amazing." He grinned back at her. _Man, I don't know what brought that on but I am sure glad it did. It must be the weather._ It had been a cold, gray winter. No snow, this was California after all, but plenty of chill winds and some rain. Now it was late spring and the weather was starting to turn up the heat as the seasons shifted gear for the coming summer. Ever since the sun had come out from behind the clouds the girls had been acting 'funny' - funny awesome, but still funny. He shook off his lascivious thoughts as another movie finished loading and began to play on the screen. "Woah, check out this guy. He's awesome." He propped the lap top up on his knee so Sarah could see it as well. The screen showed a small group of people gathered around a tall lanky kid with sandy blonde hair doing something called a 'monkey leap' over a table but the camera quickly switched to a young man in the background who was sitting on the steps of what looked like an old style catholic church surrounded by a trio of girls. He was lounging with all the arrogance of a young lion surrounded by his pride after a kill. It was difficult to tell his ethnicity. He could have been Latino, Asian, Eastern European, or even Native American from one of the southwestern tribes. It was impossible to tell from the video. Like the girls, he was dark skinned with black hair cut in the unruly sweep typical of the skater counter culture. He wore black track pants and a black tee shirt with the X Box logo on the back. The camera man called something to him in a foreign language and he responded in lazy way waving the camera off and turning back to the girl on his right. The girls chimed in and there was an exchange between the camera man and the boy on the steps. Then the boy stood slowly like a snake uncoiling in the sun. Suddenly he took off like a shot running right past the camera which swerved wildly until the cameraman could catch him the frame again. When it did it showed the young man had crossed a street and was scaling the sides of two three story buildings by simultaneously leaping back and forth between their respective fire escapes. He moved with a grace and speed that was surreal to watch. It almost looked like a special effect from a movie. At the top of the building he did a Rocky dance with his arms upraised while standing at the very edge of a three story drop as if it was nothing to him. When his face turned towards the camera it showed a manic grin as if there was nothing greater in the world than throwing yourself into one death defying leap after another.

"I know that guy!" Sarah said suddenly.

"You what?" Bobby asked.

"I know him!" Sarah repeated. The boys looked over in surprise. "He's from the Academy. He's a Gen!"

"I've never seen him. He must have been in one of the other groups." Bobby said thoughtfully.

"How did you know him?" Eddie turned to Sarah.

"He was on the same charter flight that I was on. His name's Nathan. Last name's Lion-something. Back it up a little more, Eddie." Grunge had backed the movie up and paused it on a close-up of the guy on the roof. Now Sarah wanted him to back it up farther. Her began to scroll slowly backwards.

"Stop there," She said when he got to a good close up of the boys face. He was handsome with angular features and a lazy smile. "That's probably Nathan but he looks a bit different from when I met him so I can't be sure."

"Why don't you start at the beginning."

"Yeah," Grunge said with a grin, "and when you get to the end, stop."

She scowled at him but let it slide. "Like I said, we met on the charter on the way to the Academy. It was just the two of us and our recruiter. Said he was from Houston, I think. Nathan was strictly an art major but he's keen on history too. He recognized my nation right away and started asking questions." She smiled slightly at the memory. "They weren't the typical pale-face questions but real insightful stuff, cultural comparisons and that sort of thing. That's probably why I was willing to talk to him. We spent the whole trip talking back and forth while he just kept scribbling on a notepad. I asked him what he was doing and he told me he was sketching me while we talked. He had a few questions about the use of color in the desert tribes. He knew his stuff too. He even recognized the differences in the tribal groups within the nations. When we landed he gave me the sketch he'd done." She paused as she conjured an image of it in her mind. "He was really good, it looked like he'd taken a black and white photo. It was amazing that he could do it so quickly. I think I put it in my satchel. I guess it was lost when we escaped the Academy."

"So what happened to this guy?" Bobby asked. "And what language were they speaking on the video?" He could feel his body temperature rising and clamped down on his emotions. Sarah hadn't seen this guy in more than two years and had only talked to him on an airplane ride. What did he have to be jealous about? Maybe because he had obviously impressed Sarah with his knowledge of her heritage and he had drawn a picture of her. That wasn't right. You don't go drawing pictures of another guy's girl.

"I don't know. It sounded like it might be Spanish at first but it was too different." Sarah shrugged as if it didn't matter. "We went through orientation together and then he got assigned to a different pod then ours. Something about our psych profiles being different, I guess. I never spoke to Nathan after that but I remember seeing him walking with Dr. Ivery just before they started locking us up." They sat in silence for a few minutes looking at the figure of Nathan suspended in mid-leap between the two buildings. "What should we do? Do you think IO could-?" She left the rest of her thought unspoken. They all knew what would happen if the hunters at IO recognized the face on the video.

Bobby sighed. "We'd better tell my dad. This video is new. Only got posted last month. Maybe there is still time to do something. Where does it say this was shot?"

Grunge checked the header and then whistled appreciatively. "Oh man, it says Fortaleza, Brazil. Bro, we have so gotta go on this road trip!"

Boulder, Colorado

International Operations had the best and most sophisticated computers in the world. The IO network was the largest in the world with mainframe sites literally on every continent and even in space. These server farms, called ROCs for Regional Operations Centers, fed into a single mainframe site at the heart of the network like the ancient satrapies of the Byzantine Empire sending tribute to the capitol of Byzantium. Many of these ROCs were themselves secured and hidden from the network at large resulting in a system with all of the complexity and intrigues of the historical empire it resembled. The whole thing only worked because the army of technicians, often working in isolation and with no knowledge of the activities of others of their kind in other departments, was culled from the very best and brightest the world had to offer. Despite its mind-numbing complexity the system's interface was largely automated and surprisingly intuitive. Case in point, the media monitoring subroutines of the Intelligence Directorate scrolled through literally millions of video imagery that was uploaded to more than a thousand sites across the internet. Highly advanced image recognition software searched tirelessly for key patterns in the images. These patterns were assigned numerical values based off of complex algorithms. Once an image crossed a certain threshold the automated system flagged it for review by a human analyst. Exactly which analyst in which department and with what priority was also determined by an algorithm subsumed within the first and was decided by which set of literally thousands of different thresholds was exceeded. Even a system as powerful and complex as IO's couldn't monitor every website on the internet where a video image might be uploaded but it could search the major ones. Sites like YouTube, for example. Even the daily uploads of a mega-site like YouTube could be processed by the system virtually in real time if that was the only site the system needed to examine. IO's obsessive compulsion to know it all meant that the system strained to process as many sites as was conceivable. This slowed the system to a crawl and it could take days for even a top priority image, like say an image of one of the Cheerleaders in Lynch's Mob from a mall security camera, to reach a real human being. Of course, Lynch's backdoor ensured that even if such an image was recognized by the software it would go nowhere at all. All it had taken was to change a handful of ones and zeroes to their opposite numbers in three lines of code. Three lines among billions spread across servers on three continents. It would be impossible for a programmer to find them if they didn't already know exactly what they were looking for.

Lynch's high-tech subterfuge served to protect his own children almost perfectly but it did nothing to protect the dozens of others that had fled into the night when he had broken up the Academy. Instead IO's own single-mindedness served to do what Lynch had not. Ever since the attack on Director Colby had shifted the focus onto the Lynch Mob, the algorithms had been changed to up their priority and lower the priority on the other escaped Gen 13s. It was not fool-proof, however. It had taken two weeks before the captured images of Nathanial Lyons had shown up in Simon Natal's Review Queue and another nine days before they made it close enough to the top for him to spot the "Potential Gen-Active" header. He had a momentary thrill of expectation when he thought of the accolades he would garner by being the first analyst in the ID to spot one of the Lynch Mob. When he didn't immediately recognize either image he felt deflated but soldiered on like the professional analyst he was. It took him two hours of sifting through what remained of the Academy's database before he had assembled enough data for a nearly positive identification. That bastard, Lynch, had somehow managed to scrub the data from the system when he had crashed the program. This was an unforgivable sin to a man like Natal. IO's top technicians had spent months rebuilding what had been lost but there were still massive blocks of data where the information was simply gone. After Natal had presented his findings to his supervisor for review he practically floated back to his desk.

"What's up with you?" his cubicle mate, Charlie Rhodes, asked him.

"Charlie, my man, that new Maserati we were talking about last month is mine!" Natal grinned and made a rude gesture. "So suck it bee-yatch!" Of course, if he had made one of the Cheerleaders his bonus would have covered a whole fleet of new Maseratis but Charlie didn't need to know that.

Escondido, California

Anna was sitting at the computer in Lynch's office, her fingers literally a blur as information scrolled across the screen faster than the human eye could follow. Lynch was leaning casually against the bookcase behind her. His kids, Lynch had trouble seeing them as anything but his anymore, were arrayed in an anxious semi-circle on the far side of the desk. Even the normally aloof Sarah was holding herself as still as a mouse in a room full of cats. Anna had been silently scanning the information in the files he had stolen from the Academy for four minutes and thirteen seconds, according to his watch, a veritable lifetime for his beloved and miraculous wife. Finally, she began to speak and he could almost hear the kids start breathing again. "David Anthony and Nathanial Christopher Lyons, fraternal twins, born to Emily Nicole Hernandez-Lyons October 30th 1986. No father listed in the birth records. Emily married Peter Marias Lyons September 17th 1986. The children took their step-father's last name but were never legally adopted by him. Preliminary DNA analysis supports the father as Cole Cash. That was one of your boys, dear." She said sweetly. "David was injured in a childhood accident that left him paralyzed from the waist down. He later died due to complications from the injury. Nathanial was in the same accident but suffered only minor injuries. Nathan scored exceptionally high on the standardized tests, typical for Gen Actives prior to manifestation. Psychological profile also shows him as outgoing and social in a group setting but his core personality is an introvert with a talent for keeping secrets. There is no information on him post-manifestation. It looks like either he hadn't manifested at all or was just beginning the process when the Academy began locking down the kids." Anna could hear the heartbeats of all five of her children accelerate as their own memories of that terrible time resurfaced. "Sarah is correct. He was assigned to a different pod." She looked at Lynch. "His pod was flagged for infiltrations."

When Caitlin saw Lynch's frown she asked, "What does that mean?"

"Kat, you understand that you kids were divided into the pods based off of your psychological profiles right?" Lynch asked her.

"Yes. They wanted to create teams that could work well together." she replied.

"Well, it was more than just wanting you all to get along. The profiles were also designed to identify what sorts of missions you would excel at. All of the teams were expected to operate covertly but different teams would be earmarked for different types of missions. The classes that each pod was assigned would be based of those assumed missions. "

Anna stepped into the pause. "Your pod was designated as an assault team. Your lessons were designed to subtly prepare you for your future missions, both physically and psychologically. This is why you had so many physical classes and the educational classes were designed to improve rapid decision making abilities."

"Infiltration pods were designated for long term undercover missions." Lynch said with a frown. "The lessons were designed to influence their subconscious. The goal was to make assuming new roles and lying to people easier. It was also designed to prepare them for the emotional stresses of operating while surrounded by the enemy without any hope of support if you get into trouble. An infiltrator lives in constant fear of detection. Once they get made they are as good as dead or worse. The constant stress makes them more than a little crazy. People who didn't know always used to tell me the Black Razor teams made them nervous. They said it was because my teams were always on the edge but it was the infiltration teams that made my shooters nervous. Those guys were the ones who were really riding the ragged edge. "

"Whoah, so you think the Academy made this guy crazy?"

"I don't know Eddie," Lynch replied. "I think this 'sport' of jumping from building to building seems tailor-made for an adrenaline junky and junkies of any stripe tend to make bad decisions. We need to be careful on this one."

"What are we going to do?" Roxy asked in a quiet voice. "Please, Mr. Lynch, we can't just let IO get him."

"We won't, Rox," Grunge wrapped a comforting arm around her shoulders but his eyes were focused on Lynch and Anna.

"Of course not, dear" Anna wrapped them both in her diminutive arms. "We are just going to have to be careful. We don't know yet how much IO knows and so we are going to have to go in quiet and sneaky."

"What about the rest of his pod?" Kat asked. They all looked at her. "What happened to them? When we got out we got out together. They probably did too. So what happened to them?"

"Two teams," Lynch said as he began formulating plans in his head. "The contact team will be Anna, Eddie, and Sarah. Kat, Roxy, Bobby, and I will be the support team. Anna's team will make contact and make him aware of the danger he's in. My team will stay out of sight and only come charging in if the contact team gets into trouble. You kids get upstairs and start packing. I've got some calls to make." He shot Eddie and Roxy a sharp glance. "And no swimsuits! This isn't a vacation, it's an operation."

"I'll go make some lunch." Anna said brightly as she guided Roxy and Grunge from the room before their mouths could get them into any trouble.

Boulder, Colorado

Dan squeezed off the last shot in his clip and grinned at the result. Fifteen rounds inside of a one inch grouping at 50 yards. Not bad for a pistol. Well, actually, it was pretty damn good for a rifle jockey like him. He policed up his brass and his firing station before leaving the range and headed for the cleaning room. This room was set up with long tables and all the supplies needed for the shooters to clean and service their weapons after their tour on the range. He joined Watts and Anderson at one long table. It looked like they had both just come back from the killing house. The killing house was actually a complex of rooms laid out to represent various indoor and urban environments where the shooters could practice a variety of live fire missions including hostage rescues. They were both cleaning large and menacing looking semi automatic shotguns. Beside them on the table was their body armor. Watts was grinning manically. "Don't sweat it, policeman," he was saying to Anderson as Dan took a seat. "You got all the bad guys at least." Anderson just scowled.

"What's that about?" Dan asked as he began to break down his pistol.

"We were doing a hostage rescue with these new CAWS." Watts explained hefting his weapon by way of reference. Dan knew this new version of the Close Assault Weapon System or CAWS was fully or semi automatic and carried 15 12 gauge shotgun shells just like the previous incarnations. Unlike a normal shotgun shell these were copper jacketed like a normal bullet to withstand the heat build-up in the firing chamber. Instead of pellets they fired tungsten tipped, fin-stabilized sabots – armor-piercing mini darts that pushed the shotgun's effective range into near rifle ranges and would shred even the toughest body armors like wet cardboard. What made the latest incarnation special was its modified choke. When fired a standard choke caused the shotgun's pellets, or sabots in this case, to spread outward in a circular pattern. The new modified choke created a spread that was a sort of vertical almond shape. This allowed the weapon to be aimed more effectively at a single target while reducing the fear of collateral damage. All an operator had to do was turn the weapon on its side and the spread would still fill an entire hallway with a deadly spray of armor-piercing metal darts. "Anderson here scragged two of the bystanders. Took this lady's head clean off!"

Anderson pointed his cleaning rod at Watts and said, "Yeah, yeah but the kid would have lived with immediate medical attention."

"He'd be missing an arm!" Watts shot back.

"But he'd still be alive."

Dan chuckled despite himself. "You guys are sick. You know that right?" Gallows humor was common to guys in his line of work. Both Watts and Anderson were good guys. If either of them ever really did accidentally shoot an innocent bystander it would devastate them. That was the worst part of it for Dan. They were good guys who truly believed they were wearing the white hats on this one. Only Dan knew how mistaken they were. _Are you sure they are the ones who are mistaken?_ It was just a small voice whispering from the dark shadows of his subconscious. He did his best to ignore it.

"Anderson, Watts, Grissom!" They all turned to see Ferris poking her decidedly lovely head through the door. "Grab your gear, we got an op!" All three men leapt to their feet but only Dan had to suppress a sudden lurch of fear.

"Did we find the Gens?" he asked. He was so keyed up with alarm that his words just rushed out before he could stop them.

"Down, boy," Ferris smiled at his apparent eagerness. "It ain't Lynch's bunch but it is an escapee from the program."

"Where are we headed?" Watts asked. He had shrugged his body armor onto one shoulder and was halfway to the door.

"You guys'll love this." Ferris grinned. "Pack your sunscreen. We're headed to Brazil!"

"Damn," Anderson grinned like a little kid. "Think we can extend our stay a few days after we catch them? I could use a few days of fun in the sun." Colorado's winter had been bitterly cold with high winds and lots of snow. Even now the weather outside was still chilly and miserably wet.

Ferris just shrugged. "Maybe," she said, "but what would your wife say? Debrief in conference room seven in thirty minutes." With that she was gone to collect up the next members of her chosen team. Dan, Watts, and Anderson separated briefly to grab their kit bags from their lockers. Each shooter on the team kept a deployment kit packed and ready to go at a moment's notice. It contained uniforms, toiletries, and other basics they would need for any mission. Weapons, body armor, and specialized gear would be drawn from the armory after they had a better idea of what they would need. Each then finished cleaning their weapons in their rooms before gathering in the conference room at the appointed time.

There were more than twenty people gathered in the room by the time it started. Ferris and Doctor Ivery were leading the briefing. The rest were all shooters grouped into eight-man teams. There were three teams plus a command and support group. Dan noted that only one of the teams was comprised of Keepers. The other two were heavily armed Black Razors on loan from Operations. _Not taking any chances are you, Ferris?_ Dan thought to himself. The seats in the conference room were arraigned in ascending semi-circles, like an old fashioned lecture hall. At the low point was a podium and behind the podium was a large flat screen displaying a split image of two faces. The one on the left was an intake photo from when the subjects had first arrived at the Academy. It showed a close-up of a handsome young man, probably in his late teens. His face was soft and open. Your typical suburban kid used to a life of easy living. Next to that was a slightly grainy image that looked to be a screen capture from an amateur video. It showed the same kid, maybe a little older, but a lot worldlier lounging on some sort of steps. It was also a close-up so Dan couldn't tell where he was but the face was leaner and the angles harsher. What struck Dan were the kid's eyes. They were a golden color like a wolf's or a lion's. They struck him as wholly alien, arrogant and predatory. If the picture on the left was the face of a cub then the one on the left was a young hunter who had already tasted his first kill. And he liked it.

Ivery stepped up to the podium and began the briefing. "Our target is Nathanial Lyons." He began.

Fortaleza, Brazil

When the chartered plane finally rolled to a stop at the far end of the concourse dedicated to chartered flights Caitlyn Fairchild let out a sigh of relief. It had taken all of her self-control not to crush the armrests beneath her nervous grip. She kept having visions of another chartered flight that had ended badly. This flight didn't end badly but it was certainly stressful. Mr. Lynch hadn't had time to properly vet and recruit a new air crew so they had flown with a normal charter. Even if he had, the new plane he had ordered wouldn't be ready for another 3 weeks. For security's sake they had travelled in two groups using different routes with different charter companies. The one saving grace was that this flight had no stewardess and the pilots took one look at Mr. lynch and decided it would be best if they stayed in the cockpit.

Once they were touched down Kat was standing at the doorway waiting for the co-pilot to open the door. She had to restrain herself from pushing the guy out of the way and opening the door herself. Once the door opened a rush of warm, humid air rushed into the plane's air conditioned interior. It felt like getting hit in the face with a wet blanket. The view for the ground crew below showed her long copper locks brushed dramatically from her face by the rush of air. With her piercing green eyes and glamazon body wrapped in a clingy green sun dress, she was sure she looked like some music video floozy. The blatant and appraising stares of the men below only increased her anxiety. One of the guys actually dropped the bag he was attempting to pull from the plane's luggage compartment. It hit the ground with a heavy thud but he seemed to pay no mind. Mr. Lynch somehow managed to slide past her without touching her and stalked like an angry panther down the steps. The men below quickly focused all their attention on their work. At the foot of the ramp white lines were painted on the black tarmac. They created a small box and an angled path that to a glass door into the concourse and Kat could see an older man dressed smartly in a starched white uniform waiting there. With her long strides she reached the man ahead of the others who had to rush to catch up. The man at the door tipped his black brimmed hat at her as he held the door open. This time the blanket was dry and cold. The shifting back and forth between the tropical outside and the air-conditioned inside made her nose itch. Between her charming good looks, Lynch's fake passports, and probably some pre-arraigned skullduggery they were through customs and tossing their bags into the back of a black limousine inside of ten minutes. The driver had the darkest skin tone Kat had ever seen on a real human being and it made his smile seem unnaturally white by comparison. He wore a light cream uniform trimmed in a pale blue. The sweeping palm leaves emblem of the hotel was emblazoned over his heart and on the side of the car doors.

Like everywhere else they had been the air conditioning in their limo was blasting away full bore. She noticed that the driver wore a long sleeve shirt and slacks instead of the short sleeves and shorts that she would have expected. Of course, the constant air conditioning must seem cold to a native. Kat stared out the dark tinted window as they wound their way out of the airport and through Fortaleza proper. For her it was a real Rod Serling Twilight Zone ride. Most of the people on the street were of African or Latin descent. The few whites and Asian people she saw seemed to be mostly tourists. Some sat sipping brightly colored drinks beneath awnings outside trendy eateries decorated in pastels while others lurched from one air-conditioned store to another, clutching bags with designer names stenciled on the sides. The old steadily gave ground to the new along the coast. Glass and steel high rises crowded the beaches while deeper inland the buildings became white stucco stained ivory by age and weather. Glancing down side streets and alleys she could see the debris and sagging awnings of the crushing poverty that the country's tourism board did its best to keep tucked out of sight below the surface. A mob of bare foot children down one side-street were kicking a soccer ball back and forth with smiles and laughter while another alley showed figures huddled miserably in what little shade the buildings offered from the noon-day sun. Despite the heat, it felt like it was a hundred degrees out there, the streets were damp and puddles abounded like it had just rained. The air didn't have that freshly scrubbed feeling to it that she associated with the moments after a spring shower. It still felt heavy with humidity and pregnant with more rain. Their car wound its way along the boulevard and crossed a steel bridge painted white and brick red. They were working their way inland away from the glitz of the popular tourist centers and the new construction and toward the older parts of town. After a drive of about thirty minutes in slow traffic they swung north again toward the coast, this time heading towards the western edge of the city. Their hotel was two stories, done in the expected colonial style with verandas and columns evident like most of the older structures in the city. Its stucco walls were painted a sort of neutral coral color. As their car pulled to a stop under the shade of a columned veranda they clambered out of the car and the temperature rose at least fifteen degrees in an instant only to drop again twenty feet later as the doors to the lobby opened to receive them with a blast of dry cool air conditioning. The interior was clean but a little threadbare and showed signs of long use and constant upkeep. Mr. Lynch approached the front desk and said, "Boa tarde." The language on the video had turned out to be Portuguese and it was the national language of Brazil. Of course, Anna spoke it perfectly after a brief survey of her run-files and she had been helping the rest of them learn basic phrases. Mr. Lynch had just said, "Good afternoon." The clerk behind the counter smiled brightly and greeted him with a rapid fire response that Kat didn't understand. Mr. Lynch smiled and replied somewhat slower, "**Fala inglês**? **Só falo um pouco de português**." Do you speak English? I only speak a little Portuguese.

"Do not worry, sir." The clerk switched to English. Her accent was only barely noticeable, just enough to be exotic and sexy. Kat hated it instantly. "Your Portuguese is very good and almost no accent at all."

"Thank you." Lynch allowed himself to appear to be charmed by the compliment. "I'd like to check in. The reservations are under Professor Albert Styles, Western Washington University." Lynch handed over the appropriate passport while the clerk checked her computer.

"Yes, Professor we have three rooms available for you. Two singles and a double. Is that correct?"

"Yes, thank you." While Lynch took care of checking in Kat helped Bobby and Roxy with the bags. Roxy was staring out the front windows at the busy street outside. Their hotel was situated right across the street from a park like green belt beyond which lay a beautiful white sand beach and a dark, rolling sea.

"Why is it so hot and muggy?" Roxy complained. "I thought this was supposed to be winter here?" She was dressed in a black miniskirt and t-shirt combination with a bright purple tank top over it. Her typical combat boots completed the ensemble. She would have been cute but it was clear that the heat and the humidity were getting to her. A slick sheen of sweat marred her features and slurred her make-up while her hair hung limply on her head. Bobby thought she looked vaguely like an orchid that had been left exposed to direct sunlight for too long, all wrinkled and droopy.

"They just call it winter because it's the rainy season," Bobby said. "The temperature doesn't vary all that much. It is usually in the high 70's and low 80's throughout the year." If Bobby even noticed the heat he didn't show it. In fact, with his carefully mussed hair and dashing good looks the smug bastard looked like he had just walked off the set of a teen movie. He was dressed in khaki cargo shorts and a bright red and yellow t-shirt.

"According to the guide," Kat added helpfully, "the relative humidity hovers around 77% but there are supposed to be off-shore breezes that make things livable. I guess during the rainy season there isn't much wind either." The heat had exactly the opposite effect on Kat that it did on Roxy. While Roxy just looked sweaty and uncomfortable, Kat positively glowed. The humidity added a curl to Kat's hair that gave her a slightly wild, sultry look. Her green sun dress clung to her moist skin in all the right ways and none of the wrong ways. With her dark sunglasses pushed up on her head she looked like a Hollywood starlet out to be seen on some red carpet in Cannes. Standing next to Kat only made Roxy feel more like a drowned rat. Her surrogate father was dressed in his usual: basic black. A black, short-sleeved polo shirt, black chinos, black loafers – even his socks were black. The heat didn't dare affect Jack Lynch. The only consideration he made to the weather was the black sunglasses he was wearing.

"I hate you all." Roxy muttered and stomped outside to light a cigarette.


	2. Chapter 2

The flight down from the states had gone relatively smoothly and painfully fast. One thing he had to give IO, they knew how to operate. They were all loaded into a mid-size airliner, maybe a 767 or something. He really didn't know civilian planes all that well. This one was outfitted with only about half of the normal seats. The back end of the plane was a fully fledged command center with satellite communications and a full sensor suite. The cargo area was stuffed to the gills with their gear: weapons, armor, etc. Ferris had told them that ground transportation was being secured on site and would be waiting for them when they arrived. There was even a liaison team already in place arraigning cooperation from the local LEOs. The Brazilian government had been told they were hunting terrorists. Everyone but Dan agreed that was basically the truth. Ferris had broken them into two groups. The first group, the spotter team, was broken down into investigative pairs and would be hooked up with a local LEO to act as a guide to the area. The other group, the capture team, would be kept at the Fortaleza air Force Base with the helicopters and would remain on standby until the target was located. Once the target was located, Ferris and her command team would plan the capture operation based off of the intelligence from the field. The capture team could deploy using IO's special black helicopters or go in using the small fleet of SUVs supplied by the Brazilian National Police for their use. Much of their orientation had occurred while they were still in the air so that they could hit the ground running. There was a time when Dan would have killed for that kind of efficiency now it was just killing him.

At first he had looked for an opportunity to slip away and make a phone call but that just hadn't materialized. He had considered calling Kat and the others but had quickly discarded that idea. He couldn't expose them to this kind of danger. He had decided to contact Colby or one of his team but after thinking it over, he wasn't sure what Colby could do. It wasn't like he could pull a halt to the operation without drawing the wrath of those on-high down on his own head. No, the more Dan thought about it the more he realized it was up to him and him alone. He was the grunt on the ground and he would have to find a way to make sure this kid escaped the net IO was casting his way. Dan just wished he knew how he was going to do it. The one piece of luck he had was that he had been assigned to a spotter team. Ferris must have decided he was smart or something.

The spotter teams gathered on the tarmac in front of the various SUVs. Arrayed in a small cluster were a group of local LEOs. They watched the Americans with a mixture of curiosity and resentment. Dan imagined it had to be a little frustrating for the locals to have the Americans seemingly sweep in and take things over. Ferris conferred briefly with an older guy in a starched uniform with a colorful array of popcorn on his chest. Dan noticed several of the locals giving Ferris a long look up and down. "Alright everybody, I am going to start pairing you up into teams. There will be two of my team with a local. My people, the locals already have their search areas assigned to them and they know whose vehicle is whose. Let the locals drive. They know the streets and the traffic patterns. I want to stress your mission is to locate the suspect not to apprehend. This young man is extremely dangerous. If you spot the suspect you will notify me and await further orders. Do not, I repeat, do not try to approach the subject on your own. Listen for your names. Once I pair you up you are free to go." She began calling out the teams. "Grissom, Watts – you two are with a Lieutenant JoãoAzevedo . " Ferris called as she reached their names on her list. A tall and broad-shouldered man broke off from the crowd of Brazilians and sauntered towards them at the mention of his name. To Dan's surprise he had the blond, blue-eyed look of a California surfer. He wore tan chinos and a short-sleeved white button up shirt. His hair was longer than Dan would have expected and he had an easy smile.

As he reached them he stuck out his hand, "Hi. Joe Azevedo, nice to meet you." His handshake was firm but not tight. Dan concluded "Joe" was confident in himself and his position enough that he didn't need to play any alpha-dog games. Thank heaven for small favors.

"Hey Joe."

"That's some accent, Joe," Watts said, "Berlin?"

The blond Brazilian chuckled. "Frankfurt. I went to school there. Parents are German by the way. I know you are dying to ask."

Dan raised his hands in mock surrender. "Alright, you got me. Guilty as charged."

Joe nodded. "My grandparents immigrated to Brazil at the end of World War Two. A lot of Germans did, not just the Nazis." His smile took any sting out of the words. "We have a good sized German community here." He unlocked their Toyota Highlander with the keyfob and they all climbed. Watts took the shotgun seat first so Dan slid into the back seat. "That's where we are headed, by the way. There's a shopping complex that has a sort of mini-skate park that is frequented by the _corridor livre_ crowd."

"The what?"

"_Corridor livre. _Free Runner. In America I think you call them 'urban ninjas.' They are mostly kids who do this. Clubs, like football or lacrosse. They are less obtrusive then the skate boarders so the merchants don't seem to mind them as much." Joe pulled out into traffic and began working his way south and east of the airport.

"What was that about?" Kat asked as she watched Roxy stomp out through the lobby doors. The hurt and surprise in her voice was obvious.

"Don't worry," Jack Lynch smiled and favored the grumpy pixie's retreating back with an indulgent smile, "She's just tired from the long trip and the temperature change. A cold shower and something to drink will cheer her up. Let's get these up to the rooms. Kat you stay here and keep an eye on Roxy. From now on, nobody goes anywhere alone." He handed Kat a room key. "You and Roxy are in 213. Bobby and I are in 215. We'll toss your bags into your room and bring you back the other key for Roxy. Then we can all get some lunch and go over our plans."

"Okay," she said clutching the key in both hands. His comment about everyone staying together forcibly reminded her of the inherent danger of their mission here. What if IO was already here? What if they had already found Nathan Lyons and dragged him off in chains to whatever dungeon they were keeping the captured Gens in? What if teams of Keepers were even now watching the hotel and making plans to capture all of them one by one. She glanced nervously around the lobby.

"Relax." Lynch's hand on her shoulder was like a soothing balm on her fears. "We are just being cautious. There is no reason to believe this is anything more than a normal school trip," he said referencing their established cover story of a college professor and his students come to study the economies of emerging countries.

"Yeah, okay." Kat took a deep breath and slowly let it out. It was going to be okay. They had already tangled with IO more than once and come out on top each time. If worse came to worse they could do it again. She thought about going outside to see about Roxy but decided against it. When her little sister was in one of her moods it was best just to give her some space and Kat could see her from the lobby through the windows. There were a couple of lounge chairs gathered around a low coffee table in the lobby set out with a handful of magazines and flyers for the local bars and other hot spots so she took a seat and flipped through the ones that were in English.

Anna, Grunge, and Sarah selected a booth near the back of a restaurant - an Italian restaurant, of all things, despite the décor that seemed to involve a large number of parrots. They had arrived Fortaleza two days ago and had spent the time setting up a safe house and alternate rally points for both groups. Lynch's team should have arrived today and Anna had already gotten word that they were settling into the hotel. They would convene tonight after dinner. This afternoon would be spent observing the largest Parkour club in Fortaleza from a safe distance. Sarah and Grunge would be focusing on trying to get a lead on their missing Gen while Anna would be looking for signs of other surveillance teams that might also be looking for their target. To anyone looking they were just a trio of kids. Grunge had his baggy shorts and button-up shirt with the sleeves ripped off. Sarah was in short, short cut-offs and a simple tank top. Anna looked the most changed. Her pale skin was mostly covered by a long-sleeved black and purple striped unitard she had borrowed from Roxy. A black denim mini-skirt and a sleeveless grey hoody with an angry cartoon penguin on the back completed the outfit. With some dark eye-liner, purple lipstick, and a little colored hairspray she looked like a typical angry at the world teen-aged goth. Despite the new look Anna had elected not to switch to a new personality. Grunge was glad of that. He ordered the lasagna while Sarah just had a salad. Anna ordered water, unlike the states they didn't provide a glass of automatically, and some gelato. "So after lunch we scope out the cathedral right?"

"After lunch, I scope out the Cathedral. You and Sarah will go back to the hotel and meet up with Jack." Anna reminded him. Some determined research had narrowed down the cathedral in the video as one of three possible choices. She figured to start with the largest and work her way down the list. Since there was the very real potential that an IO team was already on site and looking for them as well as Nathan Lyons she had elected to do the initial scouting on her own.

"But what if you run into trouble?" Grunge protested, "A keeper team or something. Lynch told us that nobody goes anywhere alone. Those were the rules."

"Those were your rules, Eddie," Anna replied, "They don't apply to me. I know more about field craft then all of you kids put together. The chances of you seeing an IO operative before he spots you are tragically long." She patted his hand affectionately, "That is nothing against you, dear. You just don't have the training and this isn't something you want to learn on the job. If I do encounter any trouble I am more than capable of getting away and losing my pursuers. That is what I was built for remember?"

"We're not kids, Anna," Sarah realized that came out sharper than she had intended so she tried again, "We worry about you. I know better than anyone what you are capable of but I still get scared at the idea of losing you. It is natural that we would want to be nearby to help if you needed it."

Anna was so touched by Sarah's words that she couldn't think of anything to say for almost ten whole milliseconds. When she could speak she said, "The best way you can help is to be somewhere safe. If I do run into any IO trouble I can focus all of my attention on getting away safely without having to worry about you two getting caught as well. Trust me, Shikasin, this is the best way."

"That's dirty pool." Sarah muttered but let the matter drop. She couldn't bring herself to continue the argument when Anna used her pet name on her. _What a softy I have become_, she thought to herself. When Grunge opened his mouth to continue the argument she kicked him sharply under the table.

"Ow!" he yelped, "What was that for? I was only gonna say-"

"That we will do it your way this time, Anna." Sarah finished for him. The look she shot him was so withering that he threw a heavy sigh and set his chin in his hands for a full fledged sulk. They may decide things without him but he didn't have to like it.

"Hey." The guy that sauntered past Roxy was dressed in a hideously green track pants, white tank top and a fuzzy yellow bucket hat. The color combination probably should have looked ridiculous but somehow the combination of his dark skin tone and careless confidence made it seem cool. He had a lean and athletic build but seemed young and fragile to her eyes, like one of those spring bucks on Animal Planet.

"Hey," She couldn't see his eyes behind overly large, chrome finished sunglasses but she noticed him drop a square of paper at her feet as he walked by. "Hey!" she called but he just ignored her and kept walking. She thought about using a little gravity-manipulation to corral the guy but thought better of it. There were just too many people around. "What the hell?" Roxy bent down to pick up the paper just as Kat walked up. She was looking back over her shoulder at the guy in the green and yellow.

"What's going on?" she asked as Roxy carefully unfolded the paper. Inside was a simple typed message. **Your friends are in trouble. Meet me at Baturite' and Rufino de Alencar. Look for the star fruit stall with the monkey. Bring guns. **"Oh God."

"What?" Roxy handed the note to Kat. Her face was pale and she could feel the blood pounding in her ears. Kat scanned the note, kept it and handed her a card key in return. "Get Mr. Lynch! He's in 213 or 215."

"Where are you going?" Roxy asked as Kat turned away.

"I'm going to get answers." Kat's mouth was set in a hard line and her cheeks were colored with anger. In two long strides Kat was already at the end of the little sidewalk in front of the lobby and accelerating fast. The yellow hat guy was about half way down the block, just strutting along and not looking around. Kat broke into a run. "Hey! You!" she called. Yellow hat guy glanced back over his shoulder and saw an avenging angel wrapped in a fiery halo of red hair and a green sun dress bearing down on him. He did what any rational human being would have done. He took off like a rabbit. Kat's impossibly long legs gave her a stride that was almost twice that of his. For every step she took he had to take one and a half to cover the same distance. The problem was he was fast and he took two steps in the same time it took one of hers. The result was that he was slowly pulling away from her.

Far behind her Roxy watched Kat bounding like a gazelle after her sprinting quarry. Roxy's legs were shorter than his and slower than Kat's. She quickly realized that if she didn't do something then she would never keep up. "Screw this." She said in frustration. She took a deep breath and held it as she focused all of her attention on the bouncing yellow hat. Reaching her hand out, palm down, she mimed slowly pressing down on that ugly hat. She had to be careful. She couldn't push too hard or too fast. She might break his neck if she did and where would that get them. Nowhere, that's where. Up ahead yellow hat guy began to subconsciously lean forward as the pressure of his hat began to slowly grow. By the time he reached the end of the block the weight had him bent almost double and he stumbled as he staggered around the corner. It looked to Roxy like he fell but she had lost sight of him and couldn't be sure. Once he was out of sight her gravity grip on his hat was lost anyway but Kat was almost on top of him by that point.

Kat was in such a hurry that she clipped the edge of the building and chunks of concrete went flying. Yellow hat guy was sprawled on the pavement of a narrow parking lot. The lot was shielded from the sun by an overhang and the building itself. After the heat and brightness of the sun the shadowed lot was surprisingly dark and cool. She snatched yellow hat guy by one arm and yanked him off the ground. "Who are you?" she demanded. "What did you do to my friends?" Yellow hat guy babbled something to her in Portuguese but she had no idea what he was saying. "Speak English! Damn you! I know you can!" Kat shook the man like a rag doll.

Roxy rounded the corner at a trot. She saw Kat had yellow hat guy. She had a death grip on his upper arm and was shaking him and shouting questions at him. He was dangling at an odd angle with his feet off the ground. From the look on his face it was clear that he was badly frightened and in more than a little pain. Beyond those two was the receptionist from the lobby. She was standing just to the left of a glass door that led back into the hotel. A cigarette had stopped half way to her mouth and she was staring at Kat and yellow hat guy. Roxy came around where Kat could see her and placed a gentle hand on Kat's arm. It was like touching a steel bar. "Easy, easy," she said, "You're hurting him." Kat dropped the guy like he was a hot potato. "Alright you," Roxy said, leaning over him with her hands on her hips and looking stern, "start talking." The poor guy had collapsed in a heap on the ground.

Yellow hat guy put his hands in front of him in a placating gesture and gabbled at them in his native tongue. "He says he's sorry and it wasn't his idea. His friend asked him to do it," the receptionist said. Kat jumped. She was so focused on the yellow hat guy that she hadn't even noticed the receptionist coming over even though she had been in Kat's line of sight almost the whole time.

"Does he speak any English?" Roxy asked. There was a brief exchange between the two locals and the yellow hat guy shook his head emphatically.

"What's his name?" Kat asked.

"He says his name is Arnulfo and he is very sorry for whatever was in the note. He doesn't even read English." The receptionist looked curiously at the note still clutched in Kat's hand. "What does it say? Is it very bad?"

Kat folded the note to make sure its contents couldn't be read. "Who is this friend of his?" she asked. There was more conversation back and forth. Kat caught the word Laredo and what sounded like Americano. Yellow hat guy, _Arnulfo_ Kat corrected in her head, seemed to become annoyed with the receptionist.

"He says his friend is called 'Laredo.' He's an American. They are in the same club together. They are 'free runners' but I don't know what that means. He didn't make any sense."

Roxy looked down at him. "Tell me about this Laredo character. What does he look like? If he's from the States why did he move here?"

Arnulfo stood up. He was tall, maybe five foot eleven, and lanky for a teenage kid. He held his hand a few inches above his own head. The receptionist began translating as he spoke. Arnulfo was apparently quite a fan. "He is about this tall and strong. He lifts weights. Black hair, dark skin. Not dark like mine. He is brown not black. His eyes are golden. Very handsome. All of the girls like him. He is the best runner you have ever seen. He moved to Fortaleza almost two years ago. I don't know what he does but he has money. He has a nice bike and a car. I don't know what he does but Eliza said he was a painter. She said his loft is full of paintings of women. I asked her if she posed naked for him. She hit me." That elicited a comment from the receptionist and Arnulfo responded with a hurt expression.

"What did this Laredo ask you to do exactly? Did he say why he gave you the note?" Kat interrupted their conversation.

"No. He said to come by the hotel today at noon and wait across the street until I saw a pretty girl with purple hair smoking outside the entrance. I was to walk by and drop the note. He said not to talk to her, to you, and to just drop the note."

"That's it? Just drop the note in front of me and not say anything?" Roxy looked hard at Arnulfo and realized he was younger then she had thought he was. Without his sunglasses she could see he was only fourteen or fifteen. "And you just agree to do it? Did you even ask him what was in the note?"

The receptionist laughed at his response and Arnulfo turned crimson with embarrassment. "He asked what it said but Laredo would only tell him it was man stuff and that he'd find out about that sort of thing later." This obviously peaked the receptionist's curiosity because she began looking sidelong at the note. "What does it say?

Kat looked at her hand. "He wanted us to meet him," she paused unsure of what to say next.

"He wants us to model for him." Roxy jumped into the gap. "He makes movies too. He was very detailed about what he wanted us to do."

"Oh!" the receptionist turned and began berating Arnulfo. Roxy pulled Kat away just as Bobby and Mr. Lynch came around the corner looking anxious.

"Geez, there you guys are!" Bobby called. "You scared us-"he glanced back at his father, "You scared me half to death. What got into you guys? We came back down and you had disappeared."

Mr. Lynch saw Kat's look and spoke up. "Let's talk about this upstairs." They didn't say anything as they trooped up to the girls' hotel room. It was plain and a little threadbare. The door to the bathroom didn't quite close properly and the air conditioner set in the window made an awful racket that made Kat want to grind her teeth. Sensing her discomfort Lynch gestured at the air conditioner. "The racket helps keep conversations private and the vibration on the windows screws with laser microphones." Roxy and Kat both looked surprised. "We also scanned the rooms when we dropped your bags off. We didn't find anything and I didn't expect to but it is better to be safe and make sure."

"Oh." Roxy and Kat both looked a little queasy.

Bobby was practically pacing the room with impatience. "So, c'mon," he said, "What's going on?"

"Lyons knows we're here," Kat said. "He wants to meet us." Bobby looked dumbfounded but Lynch only looked thoughtful as if he expected something like this. "He says our friends are in trouble and we should bring guns."

"I thought we were doing this her way?" Grunge asked as he and Sarah waited to cross _Rufino de Alencar_. Annie had already disappeared into the crowds wandering among stalls filled selling everything from hammocks to little glass figurines filled with brightly colored sand.

"Shh." Sarah whispered as she waited impatiently for the light to change. "She'll hear you."

"Sarah, Annie's hearing is good but not that good. There's about a million people here." They crossed with the light and the natural current of the crowd alternately pushed and pulled them along.

"Her hearing is better than you think it is." Sarah responded as she craned her neck trying to catch a glimpse of their diminutive house-keeper among the jostling crowds. She stepped away from the press of the crowd into an open space next to a stall selling all manner of fruit. There were the pre-requisite half dozen varieties of bananas, some nectarines, guava, mangoes, and even some blood red strawberries nestled amongst bright yellow star fruit. "And we are doing things her way. We just stopped to do some shopping before we meet the others. It's a perfectly legit-Ouch! Get away from me you little beast!" Too late Sarah discovered why this particular corner of the stall was free of the crowds that swarmed everywhere else. A long limbed spider monkey in a bamboo cage had reached out one of its long black-furred arms and snatched a handful of her hair. The cage was about two feet wide and five high. It actually rested on the inside of the stall behind the table of wares but one narrow side was close enough for the monkey to reach out and grab the occasional bit of fruit or passing shopper. The little monster was screeching and yanking Sarah's hair back and forth with enough force to twist her body back and forth like a rag doll.

"Oh crap!" Grunge shouted and grabbed the monkey's wrist in an attempt to keep Sarah's neck from being broken by the screeching monkey. The stall's owner was jabbering in Portuguese and began swatting the monkey's arms with a rolled up magazine.

"Damn it! I said get away from me!" Sarah's hand slapped against the bars of the monkey's cage and a bright arc of electricity leapt from her palm to smack the monkey in the chest. The creature shrieked and retreated to the far side of the cage. Sarah rubbed hard at her head to ease the pain. "Ugh. That little creep got mashed up strawberries in my hair."

"You okay?" Grunge asked. The stall owner was saying something but neither of them had any idea what it was. The tone was upset and conciliatory however to he assumed that whatever it was involved profuse apologies.

"What the hell are doing keeping that thing in a crowded market anyway?" Sarah was indignant. She wasn't especially vain about her looks so it was more a combination of fear and pain than the strawberry remains she was flicking out of her long silky hair. "No, I don't want any fruit! I want that damn thing locked up where it can't hurt anybody else."

Grunge was eyeing the gathered crowd that was watching the interplay intently. "Sarah," he said quietly, "we should go. You're drawing a crowd." Sarah looked around her and nodded her head.

"Look," she told the stall keeper. "Just forget it. No blood, no foul." She followed Grunge as he pushed his way through the crowd a little more forcefully than was strictly necessary.

Steve Conner had spent seven years working the Gang Unit for the Los Angeles Police Department. He had perfected the science of spying on kids to an art form. _That was something to put on a resume,_ he chuckled to himself. His partner, Jeff Mickelson, had served ten years in the Army Rangers before joining IO. Both men had been Keepers long before the Academy had opened its doors. In those days they had played baby sitter on a number of highly classified projects. They had both been there the night Lynch had broken up the Academy and both men had exchanged fire with his Black Razors and his mob of Gen-Actives. Jeff gained a burn scar on his right forearm that night thanks to one of the sons of bitches. Their local was a squirrelly little fellow named Pablo. He jabbered constantly at them on the ride into town. Steve figured he was probably filling them in on the local color but the man's thick accent made it difficult to make out what he was saying. After about five minutes Steve chose to just ignore him. He and Jeff had researched their site on the flight down. The Electronic Intelligence geeks had decided that the background in the video was a church, like he really needed some elint weenie to tell him that, and had narrowed the list to three potential sites. Steve and Jeff were headed to the most probable choice, the largest church in the city.

The Metropolitan Cathedral of Fortaleza was built in 1939 by the French architect George Mounier. Built in the Gothic-Roman style it featured sweeping arches and two impressive square spires that seemed to dominate the streets surrounding it. It was situated almost directly across the street from the Central Handicraft Market. This large four story building was a combination shopping mall and open air market filled with dozens of shops and stalls selling all manner of handicrafts, t-shirts, and assorted bric-a-brac. It also served as a popular gathering place for locals and tourists alike.

"Let's start on the far side of the market here," Steve said, pushing a stubby finger onto the map that Pablo had pulled from the glove box. "We'll work our way across the market and get a feel for the place. I don't want to spook these kids by pulling right up to the curb." Their guide nodded his understanding and eased their SUV through thick traffic to the corner where he took a right and swung two blocks west before turning north again. It took them fifteen minutes to arrive at a narrow parking lot stuffed with older model cars. "Christ, look at this mob," Steve grumbled. "Where are we gonna park this boat?"

"Hey," Pablo chuckled, "don't worry. You're with Fortaleza's finest!" The nut-brown little man pulled the big SUV right up to the curb and turned on the blue flashers set into the grill and rear panel. "See, no problem." Jeff just shrugged and slid out of the back. Steve grabbed the heavy shoulder bag from the front seat and followed them towards the doors into the mall. The bag he carried was a sort of brown canvas satchel like the sort of camera bag that a reporter might carry. Only this bag didn't carry camera equipment, or at least not only camera equipment. It also held a pair of compact machine pistols and a half dozen grenades, mixed evenly between CS Gas and the special Gen-Neutralizing EMP grenades that the R&D weenies had developed. He and Jeff both more the electronic charms that nullified the containment field put out by the grenades. There was also a single neural-collar. They weren't supposed to need them on a simple recon mission but he liked to be prepared.

"Oh shit!" Jeff punched his partner in the shoulder. "Do you see what I see?"

"What?" Steve looked over. Jeff wasn't pointing, he was too professional for that, but the inclination of his chin told Steve where to look. Directly ahead of them not more than a hundred feet were two of the Lynch Mob. The Jack of Clubs, Percival Chang, was pushing through the crowd. The Queen of Spades, Sarah Rainmaker, was right behind him. "Oh crap!" Steve for a moment Steve reached for the pistol in the back of his waistband. The two gen-actives were pushing their way through the crowd coming right at them. Then they turned and slipped quickly through the door into the market proper. He looked at Jeff, who had gone pale as a ghost. "Damn man, I thought they had us made."

"Yeah, me too. Rainmaker looked right at me." Jeff was rubbing at the ugly white striations of scar tissue that covered his forearm from hand to elbow. It was ridiculous to think that the Gen-Actives would have recognized them. The last time Sarah Rainmaker had seen them they had been dressed in full Keeper armor and she and the others had been smashing their way out of the Academy. That was when she had called down the lightning that gave Jeff his scars. And his nightmares.

"Who are they?" Pablo asked.

"America's most wanted." Jeff said and he flipped open his phone to call Ferris. "Keep an eye out for the others."

"Steve slipped a hand into the bag and pulled out one of the special grenades. It was an aluminum canister with a blue ring near the top. About the same size and rough shape of a soda can it had a red plastic twist-tab instead of a pin. Turning the twist to the right broke the seal and started the timer. Three seconds later anyone within thirty meters that was not otherwise shielded would be puking their guts out as wave after wave of electro-magnetically created motion-sickness washed over them. The Gens were at least partially resistant. They wouldn't puke but they wouldn't be able to use their powers either. At least, that is what the techies alleged. Steve suspected he was going to find out soon.

"What's that?" Pablo asked suddenly growing suspicious.

"It's a smoke grenade." Steve lied. "Listen, those two are extremely dangerous terrorists. They are even more important than this Lyons guy. They never go anywhere unarmed. If they spot us they will open fire on the crowd. The smoke might give some of these people a chance to get away."

"Where was that girl keeping her gun?" Pablo asked. "You can't just start lobbing smoke grenades left and right. This isn't Detroit, you know."

"Say 'Good Night' Pablo." Jeff reached around him and shot a single click of anesthetic spray into the little cop's face. He went down like a stone and only Jeff's arm under his shoulder kept him from hitting the ground. Steve glanced around but Jeff's bulk had concealed them and no one seemed to have noticed the exchange. Jeff and Steve casually led/carried an unconscious Pablo over next to the wall and eased him to the ground. Steve arraigned him so that he looked like he was sleeping in the shade of the building while Jeff shot dark stares at anyone who seemed to pay too much attention. Under his glare the few people who took notice elected to keep moving rather than interfere. Steve stood up and dusted off his hands.

"Now what?" he asked.

"Ferris says to track them but not approach. She is mobilizing the capture team now. They'll be here in twenty minutes."

"Screw that," Steve swore. "In twenty minutes they could be long gone."

"Yeah. The other spotter teams are moving in to give us some support. The nearest is only three minutes away." Jeff looked at Steve. There was a dark hunger in his eyes. "There's a big bonus for bringing in the Mob. We drop them with the grenade and we can hold our ground for three minutes, right?"

Steve got an ugly grin. Jeff didn't give a damn about the bonus. He was looking for a little payback for two years worth of pain and suffering. "Let's git 'er done."


	3. Chapter 3

"We are the best in the world," Joe enthused gesticulating wildly with both hands. Joe had a tendency to talk with his hands. Ordinarily it was the kind of habit that Dan would notice but not really waste much thought on but Joe was also driving through thick traffic with the wild abandon of New York cabbie on crack. "We have won gold medals at the World League championship every year since 2003 and we are the favorites this year as well. If we win again this year we will have six gold medals. Only the Italians have more and we beat them in three straight sets in 2001 and they didn't even make it to the medals in 2002 while we took the silver."

"I didn't know volleyball was such a big thing down here?" Watts offered from the back seat. Dan's hand shot out and grabbed the wheel as Joe turned all the way round to answer him.

"Yes," he said, "It is very popular. Not so large as football, of course, but bigger than baseball." His accent made it sound like foot-bowl and base-bowl. "Eh? Thank you, Dan, but I have it now." Joe said as he took control of the wheel again.

Dan was saved from responding when Watts's cell phone began singing. "My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard, and they're like- "warbled from the phone as Watts fished it out. The phone's song was cut off as Watts hurriedly answered it. He stared hard at Dan as he spoke into the phone.

"Uh-huh. Yea, I got it. We're on our way. No problem. We'll be there in five." Watts closed his phone and put it back into its carrier on his belt.

"Was that Ferris?" Dan asked with a grin.

"Shut up, Dan," Watts growled. "Joe, head over to the Central Market and step on it."

"Do you have 'Milkshake' as your ring tone for Ferris?" Dan pressed. "Does she know?"

"Shut the fuck up, Grissom, before I pop you one."

"What is happening?" Joe interrupted as he waited to turn down an alley that would run them to turn around. "Why are we heading to the market? Did one of your people get anything?"

"Did they ever," Watts confided. "Conner and Mickelson didn't spot our boy but they got a line on the big fish."

"What!" Whatever joke Dan had been about to make was suddenly gone.

"Ferris says they are tailing Rainmaker and Chang through the market." Watts had pulled his pistol to check the action and ensure it was loaded for the hundredth time. "Ferris thinks the rest of the Lynch Mob is probably close by. She wants us to bird-dog Chang and Rainmaker until she can get the capture team on sight."

"This Rainmaker and Chang?" Joe asked, "They are dangerous?"

"About as dangerous as a nuclear bomb," Watts said seriously. "Course, you'd never know it to look at them. Show him your cards, Dan."

"Huh? What? Oh, yeah. Here." Dan fished out his deck of cards and sorted through them until he found Sarah's and Eddie's cards. He handed them over to Joe who whistled in appreciation.

"Show him the others in case they're around too." Watts prompted and Dan handed over the other cards one by one. He held Kat's for last even though her card was always at the top of the deck.

Joe held up the Ace of Spades, John "Jack" Lynch. "That is one scary fellow. What's his story?"

"He's the ring leader, Jack Lynch. He's an ex-spook. A real top flight black ops guy gone bad." Watts supplied the standard cover story. He could have told the local cop that Lynch was the former Director of Operations for IO but the guy wouldn't even know what International Operations was.

_Gone bad or just not willing to let Ivana continue torturing kids? _Dan thought to himself. He knew if Sarah and Eddie were in town the rest of them were too. That meant Kat was in real danger. _What am I going to do now?_ Dan checked his pistol out of long habit. It was loaded and ready. He was pretty sure he was going to need to use it soon. He just didn't know who he was going to be pointing it at. Would it be Ferris and Watts or Kat and Lynch?

Kat leapt out of the cab as it pulled up to the curb. Bobby and Roxy right behind her. Mr. Lynch shot them all an irritated glance as he handed a small wad of bills to the cabbie. "Alright, settle down," he told them all sharply. "We don't know what's going on and I don't want anybody to go running into a trap." They were about four blocks away from the intersection that the mysterious note had specified. He had tried to reach Anna or one of the kids on his cell phone while they were waiting for the cab to arrive but had gotten no answer. Anna's line had gone straight to voice mail. He didn't show it but that simple act had him terrified. Anna didn't have a cell phone. His call would have been received by the circuitry built into her. The only reason she should have been out of touch is if she was in a dead zone where the signal couldn't penetrate or if…or if things were really bad. He could feel the old familiar tightness growing behind his eyes. He needed to keep a cool head and plan this out. He forced himself to slow down when all he wanted to do was run headlong into the fire, to tear apart this city until he found his missing wife and their surrogate children. It was so hard to stay calm when you knew the people you loved most might be in terrible danger. "Kat, you and Bobby will go to the meet. Roxy and I will work overwatch. Roxy, I want you to keep your eyes on Kat and Bobby. If they get into trouble then you help them. I'll be pulling counter-surveillance but I want all of you to keep your heads on swivels. Just because I don't see them doesn't mean they aren't there and you may catch something I miss."

_Yeah right,_ Bobby grimaced, _I'm gonna catch something the great Jack Lynch missed._ They all nodded their understanding despite the misgivings that each of them struggled to hide from the others.

"Listen to each other and remember your rally points." Jack looked them each in the eye, one by one. "You can do this. We can do this. Just keep your heads and trust your instincts." They split up and set off. Lynch and Roxy crossed the street to get some distance and a better vantage point while Kat and Bobby did their best to blend with the crowd.

Bobby was really struggling to be cool and calm. He knew his body temperature was spiking rapidly and did some deep breathing exercises to try to keep from igniting nearby objects. It didn't help that Kat was just as nervous as he was. Her methodology for relieving tension was to roll her tense shoulders. The problem with that was that it caused her outrageously fantastic bosom to heave and swell dramatically. One poor guy had almost gotten run over when he became so lost in Kat's passing that he stumbled off the sidewalk and into the street. Thank God the driver of the car was a woman or the poor dude would be dead by now. He reigned himself in mentally and yanked his eyes away from his friend's chest. He had to be cool and professional like his father. All he really wanted to do was charge straight in and start tearing this place apart until he found his missing mother and their friends. It was so hard to stay calm when you knew the people you loved most might be in terrible danger.

They had little trouble finding the stall with the monkey. It was close to the corner of the open air portion of the market. As they approached a young blonde woman detached from the crowd and headed directly toward them. Her coloring was too dark for the hair to be natural and she had that look of someone who tries too hard to be pretty. She had one of those trendy overly large purses that were really more of a satchel slung over one shoulder. She pulled some sort of tablet from it as she approached them.

"Rose, this is for you." she said addressing Kat but looking directly at Bobby with a sly smile, "He said he couldn't wait but that you needed to meet him in the lot on Tabosa." The girl turned her attention fully on Kat as she took the tablet from her. "_Merda_! I guess the _filho da puta_ got the proportions right after all." Bobby and Kat glanced at the tablet. It was a pad of sketch paper with a surprisingly detailed and realistic pencil drawing on it. It showed what looked like the market building in front of them seen from another side. There were large windows on the upper stories and one in particular on the third floor had been circled repeatedly. A dotted line connected the window to the top of a nearby street light. At the base of the light was a figure that looked exactly like Roxy. She seemed to be massaging a mass of clouds gathered under the street light. In the background were a Subaru Impreza and a motorcycle parked side by side. A set of car keys with a white and red plastic car attached to the chain was clipped to the spiral binding of the pad.

Kat looked at the girl sharply. "What is this and who are you? Where are our friends?"

The girl held her hands up in a universal placating gesture. "Don't kill the messenger, Rose. I don't know where your friends are. Laredo just told me to meet you here and give you this. I think he's gone to get them. He said he couldn't wait any longer and he'd meet you guys in the lot. That's all I know."

"Why do you keep calling her Rose?" Bobby asked.

"Never mind that," snapped Kat. "Where is Laredo now?"

"He went inside. He's probably at the lot by now."

"Where is this?" Kat said pointing to the picture on the pad.

"That's the lot where we parked when we got here. It is over there around the corner!" The girl glanced at Bobby and seemed to bite her lip. "Look, I know it sounds crazy but you've got to trust him. He-well he knows things." She turned away from them and hugged herself tightly and Bobby had a sudden inexplicable urge to comfort her. She seemed to be reliving some bad memories and seemed very fragile in that moment. "He's really smart and he can figure people out. Like he can tell what they are going to do before they do. He helps people." She smiled sadly at him. "Even when they are not smart enough to help themselves."

"What's going on?" Roxy asked as she and Lynch approached the group. Bobby could see that Lynch's eyes took in everything. Kat gave them the run down and Lynch seemed to consider for a long moment. Finally, he nodded and looked at the blonde girl, who had shrunk back behind Bobby but hadn't tried to slip away.

"Do you trust him? Laredo?" he asked her.

She didn't even hesitate. "Totally," she said.

"Show us where this lot is." She pointed and Lynch set off without a backward glance.

"Great," Grunge muttered, "We lost her."

Sarah scanned the crowds all around them but Grunge was right. Anna was lost in the crowd. The interior of the mall was not what she had expected. It was laid out like malls in the States with long indoor avenues lined with shops but the avenues here were about twice as wide as they would be in a normal mall and those avenues were packed with vendor's stalls. Wide ramps led to upper floors where more established shops were located. "Let's go up to the third floor. That way we can look down on the first two floors and maybe spot her that way." She started for the elevator.

"Wait," Grunge led her past the elevator and to the ramp farther down. They had to wait for a break in the crowd to cut across the lane before going up. As they circled up the ramp they stayed near the railing straining to catch some sight of Anna. "Damn, you wouldn't think that it would be that hard to spot a gothed out teen in this crowd."

"Watch it, they are headed your way." Jeff muttered into his tactical radio. To anyone looking he just appeared to be muttering to himself. IO's R&D had developed ear bud radios at least five years ago. They looked just like the in-the-ear style of hearing aids. Jeff had been trailing the teens on the main floor while his partner took the second floor for an overhead view.

"Did they make you?" Steve's voice whispered in his ear. There was quite a lot of static on the line. The ear buds didn't have a great range, only about a half mile, but reception was generally very clear. The building had been built with the old style of heavy particulate concrete with an extensive steel rebar frame. Because of the lower quality of construction materials used in the third world and the need to keep out the tropical heat the walls here were thicker than they would have been in the States. All that extra concrete was interfering with their transmissions even though they were both inside the building. Jeff considered synching the ear buds to their cell phones to boost their strength but that would also open their line to Ferris and he didn't want her listening in until they had bagged the two Gen-actives. Better to seek forgiveness than permission, especially when you already had specific orders not to engage.

"I don't think so. Be careful, though." Jeff continued past the ramp that his quarry had taken. He would work his way to the next set of ramps opposite so as not to arouse any suspicion. Steve would have to hold his own for a few minutes while he got back into position. "They are definitely looking for tails though. They aren't even pretending to look at the stores. They just keep scanning the crowd."

"Amateurs," Steve chuckled. "You'd think Lynch would have trained them better. All right, I've got eyes on the target. They are continuing up to the third floor." He moved away from the t-shirt's he had been using for cover and slipped into the crowd flowing like a slow churning river headed up the ramp. There was an art to moving through crowds unnoticed. People who tried to be surreptitious and avoid suspicion always ended up looking like they were skulking and were easily spotted, usually because they were trying too hard to avoid bumping into people. The trick was to walk right out in the open. Moving through and with the crowd like a fish in school or a cow in the herd. He became like a satellite weaving an erratic orbit around the kids. He'd pass by them and walk in front of them for a short period before pausing to "window shop" until they were in front of him again before continuing on. He actually walked right next to them briefly. He didn't avoid eye contact either. That was a dead give-away to a suspicious mark. Instead, he took the opportunity to give Rainmaker an appraising leer and shot a quick grin at Chang. To Chang he would be just some old guy admiring a young stud's piece of ass before moving on, another face in the crowd.

"Alright, I am eyes on." Steve spotted Jeff slip into the crowd ahead of the two teens before slowly letting them overtake and pass him. "Suspicious pair aren't they?" Jeff whispered. _These kids are worse than amateurs. Didn't Lynch teach them anything? _They were clearly aware of pursuit. Chang and Rainmaker's heads were in constant motion as they looked all about them. They kept stepping to the railing to look down on the lower floors. They didn't even try to hide their efforts to search the crowd. Jeff began to get suspicious. Those who did not know their past were doomed to repeat it. "Hey, Steve, do you remember the last time we tumbled on these kids at a mall?"

"Yeah, in California." Steve whispered back. "It was an ambush. They used the cheerleaders as stalking horses and the little blonde twelve-five snatched one of our guys and tortured him in a bathroom while everyone was busy looking at the girls." The word was the guy was out, a psych casualty. "You think they're baiting us?"

"I don't know," Jeff replied, "I'm just getting that creeping feeling on the back of my neck. Like I'm in the sniper's sights, you know."

"You want to abort?" Steve asked.

"No. If we are going to do this then I think we need to do it soon."

"What if it is an ambush?"

Jeff was silent for a moment and then he said, "Assault through." He was referring to basic military doctrine. When caught in an ambush the most important thing was to get out of the kill zone. Often the fastest way to do that was to attack the attackers or 'assault through' the ambush. "It looks like there is a bathroom up ahead. That would be a good place to secure for backup. I'll move ahead and prep it." Steve let his partner get ahead before closing the distance to the target. Their hastily developed plan was for him to approach from behind with the EMP grenade. They would follow that up with a spray to each of them to keep them out. Once both kids were out they planned to put the collar on Rainmaker. The bathroom would have only one entrance or exit and no real windows. This would make it easy to defend and they could hole up there. They would flash their ID to any rent-a-cops who came along and wait for the cavalry to arrive.

As they approached the bathroom Steve reached into his bag and twisted the tab on the grenade until it released. He didn't remove it from his bag. There was no need. The grenade just pumped out electro-magnetic pulses so there was no outward sign to indicate when one had gone off. Not even a pop. He quick counted to three as he rapidly closed the distance to his targets. Just as he reached them people everywhere suddenly hunched over and fell to the ground. Their cries of pain and fear were muffled as they retched violently and he could see at least three people going into convulsions. He was horrified to see that the two people he wanted to be curling up into a ball and puking their guts out looked shocked but otherwise unaffected by the invisible attack. They recovered quickly though. Lynch may not have taught them how to spot a tail but he was clearly giving them combat training. The air was suddenly heavy with the stench of ozone and he could feel the hairs on the back of his arms beginning to stand upright. Rainmaker was getting that blue, arc-light aura that he had seen before, right before she fried a whole bank of computers and his partner's arm in the process. _Oh shit!_ He couldn't worry about that now. He was supposed to spray Chang. He would have to trust his partner to handle the girl while he dealt with Chang.

Steve grabbed Chang's shoulder. His intent was to spin him around for a face full of anesthetic but things didn't work out that way. The muscular Asian grabbed his wrist and somehow he ended up on the ground staring up into those angry black eyes with his wrist locked painfully in place and some innocent bystander's vomit soaking into the back of his collar. _Oh God he's fast!_ Chang had a forearm into Steve's throat before he could blink and was pressing hard on the carotid artery on his right side. Since only one of the arteries in his neck was being squeezed he wouldn't black out immediately but Steve knew that it was only a matter of time. The pen-sized anesthetic launcher had been lost when Chang flipped him through the air and he couldn't reach his gun with his free hand. He pounded hard at his captor's face and chest but Chang just leaned his head forward so that Steve's blows glanced ineffectually off to the side. The pain in his head was becoming unbearable and he began to panic, his hand scrabbling desperately at Chang's neck and chest. His hand closed on something and he yanked hard. There was a snap and Chang moaned and then fell heavily against him. Steve shoved him off. He looked at the object in his hand and realized it was just like the charm that he and Jeff wore to protect them from the effects of the EMP.

"You're toast!" an angry voice hissed above him. Steve looked up into the eyes of Sarah Rainmaker. Normally they were a chocolate brown but now they were as dark as thunderclouds and bright tendrils of blue lightning crackled across the irises. The stink of ozone grew even sharper and he had a moment to consider his impending doom.

Then Jeff reached from behind her and shot a cloud of anesthetic directly into her face. Rainmaker spun to face Jeff a ball of brilliant energy crackling in her hand. He cracked her across the face with a collapsible steel baton. There was a sudden flash and a loud bang as the energy she had gathered shot out through the steel. Jeff was knocked back but Rainmaker fell like a house of cards.

The two men pulled themselves to their feet and looked around. There were probably forty people sprawled out on the ground around them. The rest of the crowd was stampeding away from the altercation in all directions. Steve was huffing and puffing like he had just run a marathon. It had felt like hours had passed but it had only taken seconds. Jeff kicked Rainmaker over onto her back. She had a cut running from her upper cheek into her scalp that was bleeding freely. If she came away with nothing more than a concussion she'd be lucky. Jeff tugged a heavy rubber glove off his right hand and dropped it on her chest. "Got you, bitch," he muttered. "What about him?"

"The EMP has got him." Steve answered looking at Chang. His body was giving little twitches and spasms but was otherwise immobile. The kid's eyes were open but unfocused and rolling in his head. The EMP grenades were good for three minutes of pulse. There was plenty of time.

"Dose him," Jeff said as he handed over his pen dispenser, "and give me the collar. I'm gonna leash this whore."

Anna moved easily though the crowd pausing now and again to examine this or that item on a vendor's stall. She spotted a small clay figurine. It showed a pudgy gray mouse standing on a tan base. The comical little figure was dressed in a black suit with black sunglasses and clutching a fat pistol in an imitation police pose. The base read **Mouse in Black**. Anna immediately thought of Jack. It made no logical sense whatsoever but she suddenly had an intense desire to purchase the little mouse for him. She wondered if the heat or the humidity might have affected her inner workings. She knew that was utterly impossible, of course, but how else could she explain such an irrational compulsion. She was about to catch the shopkeeper's eye when there was a sudden bang from the mall behind her. She attempted to catalog the sound. It was similar to the distinctive crack of a flash bang grenade but the timbre was different and it wasn't nearly loud enough. Triangulating the echoes put the bang only four hundred feet back the way she had come but up, probably on the third floor. Her passive sensors picked up a dramatic spike in electro-magnetic radiation from that direction as well. She was already moving before the screams started, heading back toward the ramp leading up. Her sensitive ears already picking out the rush of people crowding the ramp from up above. Someone grabbed her arm. She spun extending her arm. She was fully engaged in aggressor mode so her time dilation was maximized. She stopped with her palm, and its concealed 10mm submachine gun, only a whisker's breadth away from the most breath-taking golden eyes she had ever seen. They were shaped like almonds and angled slightly up at the ends giving him an inscrutable, cat-like gaze.

"Wait," Nathan Lyons said as he began dragging her back away from the ramp and toward the elevators, "This way is faster."

His voice was surprisingly deep for such a young man, somehow soft and intimate but full of a hidden power. Her memory flashed to a time when she and Roxy had been streaming music and she played a song called "Can't Get Enough of Your Love, Babe" by a man named Barry White. "This," Roxy had declared with her usual exuberance, "is the most romantic voice of all time." _Wait until Roxy gets an earful of him. _Anna glanced back toward the ramps but then followed the rapidly retreating young man. He was dressed in a dark blue track suit with the Nike swoosh displayed in white across the back and what appeared to be bright blue running shoes with thin soft soles. He was fast and he moved through the crowded mall like water running downstream. He seemed to flow naturally and seamlessly over, under, or around obstacles and people. At the elevator he leapt up and grabbed a metal support on the elevator cage. The support was almost fifteen feet off the ground but he hopped up with the same ease as Eddie skipping a step on the stairs. He continued up - leaping and grabbing, leaping and grabbing - until he reached the third floor and rolled over the railing. Anna was right behind him. What she lacked in practiced skills she made up for with precision and mechanical strength. The crowd here was thick as panicked people tried to shove their way onto the elevator. There was no room for fancy maneuvers in the press of bodies and Nathan pushed his way through the crowd using simple brute force. Anna followed in his wake, feeling a bit like a salmon swimming upstream. Suddenly they broke through into an open space between the crowd at the elevator and the crowd at the ramp. Anna quickly grabbed Nathan and brought him up short. He jerked and fell backwards like a puppy on a leash. "What is going on?" she asked him. "I'm not going to go running into danger without knowing what I am getting into."

"Your kids," he said, "the Asian boy and Sarah. IO has them in the bathroom. They have guns."

"So do I." Anna said in a voice like death's mean little sister. This time it was Nathan running in her wake as Anna sprinted down the aisle. Somewhere a fire alarm started going off.

They slid to a halt as the bathrooms came into sight. Just beyond lay the still heaving bodies of the innocents still caught in the grip of the EMP grenade. Anna could see a large man with short cropped salt-and-pepper hair dragging Eddie by his shoulders while another man, not as thick but taller with curly reddish brown hair and a ruddy complexion, held the door. The ginger had a camera bag slung over one shoulder and a sub-machine gun in one hand. Anna's hand snapped up and the seam in her palm opened like the gimlet eye of some deep sea creature. There was a trio of flashes from her palm but relatively little sound, just a muffled pop-pop-pop. Ginger dropped his weapon and collapsed with a cry as he was struck in the forearm, the shoulder, and the shin. Each round impacted against bones, shattering them into splinters. None of the wounds was life threatening but they were certainly career-ending. A part of her registered that Nathan had slid to a stop but Anna didn't even slow down. She reached the door and posted against the jamb to avoid exposing herself around the opening. She made a quick glance beyond the door into the interior of the bathroom. Her head was only exposed for one-fiftieth of a second. By the time the human brain could register the movement she had already ducked back under cover. That didn't stop Salt-and-pepper from sending a three round burst spitting against the door and the wall. Had it been a simple plasterboard interior wall the heavy rounds would have punched clean through but like so much of the rest of the mall, these walls were fashioned from concrete.

"Anna!" Nathan called to her from thirty yards away. "The bag! Toss the bag!" He was pointing to the camera bag on the ground. Ginger was struggling to hold onto consciousness as he rapidly fell into shock. Even so the bag was still exposed to Salt-and-pepper's line of fire. Still, he was only human. Anna ducked from one side of the door to the other at ridiculous speed. Her nimble little feet were dancing around Ginger as she scooped up the camera bag and tossed it at Nathan while simultaneously dodging back under cover opposite her starting position. "Urhk!" Nathan made a strangled sound as the bag flew at him. Anna watched in horror as his eyes rolled up and he collapsed to the floor, flopping like a fish. The bag sailed overhead where it hit the railing at the edge of the third floor balcony. For the briefest of moments she thought it would fall back to the floor but then it rolled over and disappeared over the edge. Anna again leapt past the doorway. Salt-and-pepper must have been waiting for it because he triggered a burst as soon as he saw movement but Anna's inhuman speed had already propelled her to safety. She slid to a halt next to Nathan who was struggling to his hands and knees and hawking globs of phlegm and blood. "Madre de dios! That was worse than I thought it would be," he said with a shudder. He spit out more blood. "I think I bit my tongue. Jesus, that hurts."

"Are you alright?" Anna asked, "I'm sorry I didn't realize that would happen. What was in that thing?" Anna's sensors finally registered what they had noticed all along, the source of the electro-magnetic pulse was coming from the bag. Anna's internal circuitry was unaffected by the relatively weak frequencies of this particular EMP so whatever the signal was it had registered as a lower priority threat. Her CPU had chosen to ignore it and focus all of her considerable computational power on the immediate danger to her children. It was a perfectly logical but potentially lethal error. She made a note that she would have to reassign priorities in her internal logic algorithms.

"Don't know exactly. Just that it is what messes people up. See." He was pointing to the crowd of innocents that were beginning to settle down. They weren't recovering as fast as Nathan was but they were clearly beginning to recover. Nathan got to his feet, groaning like an old man. "They've got your kids just inside the entry. We need to get them and get out. More are coming."

"Grissom, Watts; we have a situation," Ferris's voice sounded in his ear. "What is your ETA on site?" Each of the IO special operators had synched their ear buds to special circuits in their cell phones. It boosted their effective range considerably as long as the phones were in range of a cell tower. However because it kept an open channel continuously it severely limited their battery life. They had only about two hours of signal time but that was more than enough for this operation.

"How soon, Joe?" Dan checked with their driver who held up two fingers. "Two mikes. What's happened?"

"We've lost contact with Conner and Mickelson. Lewiston and Evans just arrived on site and are reporting all hell is breaking loose. People are calling it a terrorist attack."

"Oh shit," Watts swore, "How bad is it? Another Escondido?"

"Unknown at this time. There are security cameras on site but the damn things are hard wired and we can't access them remotely. Evans says the mall is all reinforced concrete so signals inside aren't worth a damn. Gawd, I hate the third world!" Ferris was really on edge. Like all of them worst case scenarios were scrolling across her imagination.

"Who else is on site?" Dan asked.

"Wallace and Kent, Sykes and Channing. Ski and Paul should arrive about the same time you do. I want you guys to secure the southeast exit and the parking lot on that side. People will be swarming out those doors so be on your toes. I'm sending Ski and Paul inside."

"Roger that." Dan and Watts acknowledged their orders simultaneously. Dan was so uptight he was starting shake. Gunner Wasnisowski was a Marine warrant officer in his previous life. He was a big mean man who liked big guns, loud bikes, and bad beer; in that order. Simone Paul was only about half the size of her partner but was probably twice as mean. Around IO she was known as the "Evil Pixie." Both of them were the sort of people that felt you should shoot first, shoot twice, shoot three times, and if there was anything left after that you might start asking questions of the corpses but only IF you were out of ammunition. Sykes and Channing were good guys and he'd bet they were reliable in a firefight but he hadn't worked directly with them in the field. He didn't know how they would react but he knew they were dedicated to stopping the gen-active "terrorists." _Craptastic! What am I going to do?_ Dan knew he couldn't sit outside waiting for Kat and the others to come out his door. The odds were too long against that. He couldn't disobey his orders and charge inside either. That would blow any chance he might have at helping them covertly.

"There's the car!" Bobby pointed as they rounded the corner. The Impreza shown in the drawing was crowded into a stall along with a dark blue BMW motorcycle. Kat looked the car over as they approached. It was white with a sort of stylized design in red on the hood. It looked like the letter "M." "It's a good paint job but it doesn't really look like the Mach 5, tho."

"The what?" Kat asked.

"Oh, uh," Bobby blushed. "It's nothing. I bet these start the car but what about the bike? As they approached a beat up Toyota truck pulled out of the stall directly under the nearby streetlight.

"That's must be the street light." Lynch indicated with a nod of his head. "Kat, see if you can move that Volkswagon out of the stall on the right. Roxy, keep your eye on those windows on the third floor. Give me those keys. I'm going to check out Speed's car."

"Who?" Kat asked but Bobby just grinned and handed over the keys to his dad. "What's that?" From inside the mall came the distant sound of a fire alarm. Moments later panicked people started streaming out the doors and running towards vehicles or just heading for the street. The little group moved back towards the Impreza as the mob swirled around them. People were speaking rapidly in Portuguese but none of them were confident enough in the language to catch anything.

"Stay here. I'm going in to see if I can't figure out what's going on."

Kat stepped forward. "I'll go with you, Mr. Lynch."

"No, somebody needs to stay here in case our people come out that window in the drawing."

"Rox and Bobby can handle that," Kat insisted, "We don't know what exactly is going on and it is too dangerous to go in alone. We need to work in teams."

Lynch nodded after only a moment. "You're right. I could use your help pushing through that crowd anyway. You two stay low and call if anything comes up." Bobby and Roxy nodded their understanding as Jack and Kat headed towards the entrance to the mall. Traffic in the parking lot had become a snarl as panicked people tried to extricate their cars while other people just milled around. Kat was nearly hit by a car that was attempting to back out against the crush of people. It was an odd, boxy looking thing and she didn't recognize the make. It reminded her of those old World War II combat cars you saw in the movies that the generals were always riding around in. She placed a foot on the rear bumper and shoved. The car slammed forward three feet and struck a van that was parked opposite it. The driver of the thing staggered out of his vehicle and looked around bewildered. Lynch just smirked and kept going then stopped abruptly. A large black SUV with red and blue lights flashing in the grill jumped the curb and came to a halt across the lot. Two men and a woman leapt out of the SUV and they all had guns. "Kat get down!" he shouted as he drew his pistol. Kat looked around and spotted the trouble but didn't get down. Instead she moved in front of Lynch as a shield.

"Bobby!" she called, "We've got trouble!" Two of them, the larger of the men and the woman were armed with sub-machine guns and began to open fire immediately. The rounds pinged around her and she heard people screaming in terror but she had no idea if anyone was hit by direct fire or the ricochets that bounced off of her broad chest. Kat could see the third gun man was only armed with a pistol and seemed to be yelling at the other two as if he objected to them opening fire amongst the crowd. _Imagine that,_ she thought, _an IO thug with a conscience._

"Contact! Contact!" the waspish voice of the Evil Pixie shouted in Dan's ear. "We got the whole damn mob on the east side of the mall. Gunner! Stop fucking around and shoot that red-headed bitch already!"

"Dan, where are you and Watts?" Did Ferris's voice sound eager or afraid?

"We're about a block away, Ferris," he told her. "We'll be there in thirty seconds."

"Where's that capture team?" Watts asked.

"We're still en route," Ferris told them over the radio. "Damn it! I knew we should have used the choppers."

"Any word from the teams inside the mall?" Joe asked. Ferris responded in the negative apparently the heavy concrete was even messing with IO's advanced communications gear.

"That's not right," Watts said. "Even with all the concrete it shouldn't be this bad."

"We'll figure that out once we've caught the bastards." Ferris responded, "Now move your asses."

Anna and Nathan moved cautiously to the edge of the door. Ginger must have crawled or been dragged into the bathroom. There was a smear of blood on the floor and the bathroom door had been allowed to close. Anna used her hyper-acute senses of hearing and smell to draw a picture of the interior of the bathroom in her mind. Ginger was sitting inside near the sinks, leaning against the wall. Probably sitting, he was breathing heavily and seemed only partially conscious. Salt-and-pepper was crouched against the interior wall where he would have cover and a clear field of fire on the door. Eddie and Sarah were on the ground not far from Ginger. Their breathing was deep and even, unconscious but only Sarah was bleeding.

"He's just inside behind the wall," she told Nathan. "I need you to open the door so I can get a shot at him. Do you think you can do that?"

"Sure. Nod when you are ready." Nathan moved next to the door and Anna took her position. She was laying prone with her head up and her braced arm outstretched before her. She nodded at Nathan and the bathroom door popped open as if it had been hit with a sledgehammer. The door banged heavily against the wall and remained pinned there. Anna shot Salt-and-Pepper once in each of his hands. The man screamed as the thumb of his right hand was literally blown off. Blood sprayed out like soda released from a shaken can. He clutched his hands to his chest trying to stop the bleeding. Nathan stepped into the bathroom and Anna saw him pull a compact nine-millimeter pistol from his waistband. His body blocked her view but the sound of the gun going off followed immediately by the wet splat made it clear what he had done. She scrambled up but Nathan had already stepped around the corner and she heard another shot go off. The door remained open. There was a small black hole in Salt-and-pepper's skull just above his right eye. The floor and wall behind his sprawled body was splattered in crimson gore speckled with pinkish bits of brain and white shards of bone. She came around the corner to see Nathan removing his jacket. Underneath he had a white wife-beater tank top and she could see the play of well-developed muscles underneath smooth sun-browned skin. His shoulders could serve for an anatomy chart and Anna suspected he worked out at least as much as Kat did. He had replaced the pistol into a brown leather holster that was clipped to the waistband alongside a second identical pistol. As she watched he wrapped Sarah in his jacket and then hefted her into a fireman's carry. He looked at her. "You'll need to carry the other one. He's heavier and you're the stronger of the two of us. Aren't you?"

Anna nodded and moved in to sling Eddie over her shoulders. "You didn't need to kill them," she told him. "They were neutralized as threats."

He looked at her for a long moment. When he spoke his voice sounded only mildly contrite. "I know. I guess I wanted a little preemptive revenge. This way, we need to get to the coffee shop." He set off at a run. The crowds had fled this part of the mall but Anna could hear footsteps pounding up the ramp in their direction.

"They're coming," she warned.

"It's okay," he answered. "They'll pause at the bathroom for at least a minute."

They ran into a tea and coffee shop that was down the aisle. The walls were lined with rows and rows of tin canisters and glass jars containing all manner of tea leaves and coffee beans. There was a counter and register near the door but the rest of the open space was dedicated to a number of small circular tables with matching chairs. The back wall of the shop was composed of large picture windows. Nathan went straight to the back and carefully laid Sarah into one of the chairs. He gestured to one of the others and she put Eddie into that one. "Oh dear," Anna murmured when she noticed the heavy metal collar circling Sarah's neck. It was thick, about two inches around and circular like a loop. Wires and a couple of odd tubes filled with some sort of glowing green energy dotted its surface. She took the steel collar in her hands and carefully snapped it in half. She tossed it to the ground with disgust. She carefully examined Sarah's injuries. The cut was ragged and ugly but did not appear to be immediately life threatening. With a Gen-Active's enhanced metabolism she would probably heal without a scar if Anna could get it stitched up soon. She couldn't be one hundred percent certain that there was no internal damage to her brain or her skull but she was confident that the worst Sarah would suffer was a concussion. Not that such an injury wasn't serious but it could have been a lot worse. While she had been examining her adopted daughter Nathan had pulled an old army surplus backpack that appeared to have been abandoned by its owner. He opened it up and drew out two coils of red climbing rope. Setting one coil aside he used the other to lash Eddie to his chair.

"What are you doing?" she demanded.

"We'll need our hands free," he said by way of explanation. "It's too far to safely jump with a load." Anna heard gunfire coming from outside and she looked out the window. She started with surprise. In the parking lot below she could see Kat holding a compact sedan out in front of her like a shield while her beloved Jack leaned around it to shoot at a trio of the enemy. Bobby and Roxy were trying to help injured bystanders from the shelter of Kat's barrier. Nathan put a key ring in her hand. "See the bike? You drive it. There's a GPS on the tank but you should be able to follow me. Tell the blonde kid to start the car and get out of the way. I'm driving." Anna glanced back as he returned to securing Sarah to her chair.

"He's already got the keys doesn't he?" Nathan nodded. "You've planned ahead for all of this haven't you?"

He gave her a wry smile. "Planning ahead is sort of my specialty." He started lashing the other end of the rope tied to Eddie's chair to himself and indicated she should do the same with Sarah. Anna brought up her communications suite as she did so. Her call was answered almost immediately.

"Annie!" her husband's voice was tight and angry. "Are you alright? Where are you?"

"We're right above you, love. Eddie and Sarah are unconscious but don't appear to be seriously injured. I think they were probably drugged." She made her voice sound bright and sunny. "We found Nathan by the way."

"You found him or he found you?"

She frowned. "He found us."

"What's the plan? Are you coming out or are we coming in?"

"We're coming out. Tell Bobby to start the car next to the motorcycle. I think he probably has the keys. Nathan says to let him drive."

"We'll be ready."

"Baby, there are two more SUVs converging on your position. Tell Kat to clear the red pickup truck on your left. That should give us room to reach the street." She turned back to Nathan. He tugged at the ropes around his shoulders to make sure they were tight and drew both his pistols.

"What are you going to do?" Anna was curious what his plan for getting down would be.

"Don't worry," he grinned at her, "I saw this in a cartoon once but I think we can make it." He spun suddenly and fired both pistols simultaneously. Two IO operatives moving up the hallway were each struck in the head. The rounds impacted just above and forward their ears. The far sides of their heads vanished in a spray of gore and there were shouts from down the hall. Anna frowned. Her hyper acute senses were highlighting anomalies in the action she had just witnessed and she used a half a dozen milliseconds to replay the scene to make certain. Nathan had turned and fired before the men had appeared at the corner. He had shot at nothing and the men had literally run into his shots. The other thing that didn't fit was the pistols. When a shot was fired the gunpowder in the round ignited and the expanding gasses forced the bullet out of the barrel at supersonic speeds. In a modern semi-automatic weapon a portion of those gasses were sheared off into a gas tube. This energy was used to cycle the bolt, drive it backwards to clear the firing chamber by ejecting the spent casing out the ejection port. As the bolt was driven backward it compressed a spring which then pushed the bolt back into its original position stripping a new round and loading it into the chamber in the process. Anna could see the bolt cycle but there was no spent casing and there was no distinctive fire plume of expelled gasses from the barrel. Whatever projectile the pistols fired, and even Anna's sense were not sharp enough to clearly see a bullet in flight, they didn't use gunpowder and they didn't leave any spent brass. It was a mystery she would have to solve later and she returned her focus to the present moment. Nathan shot out the window in front of them and ran headlong for the opening; trailing rope behind him. Even Anna was surprised as he leapt out into the air from a three story window like a cliff diver trying to clear the breakers at the base of the cliff. As he fell he fired four shots and then tossed the pistols aside – just in time to grab the crossbeam of the streetlight. Swinging like a gymnast on a high bar he swung himself up and over and then released his grip. He fell but the rope, wrapped once about the crossbeam, pulled taught. Eddie and his chair were yanked out the window by the force of his momentum. Anna nearly screamed as an unconscious and bound Eddie plummeted to the concrete below. The falling weight and the mechanical lever of the rope wrapped around the beam served to slow Nathan's fall but he still hit the ground hard. He rolled to his feet with the momentum and ran to take up the slack on the rope. Eddie swung on the end of a pendulum as his fall was arrested less than eight feet above the ground. Nathan leaped up to grab Eddie to stop his swinging. Bobby used a knife of fire to cut the rope and release Nathan and Eddie. The two men dragged Eddie to the car and Anna was aghast to see Nathan gesturing at the trunk. Sure enough Bobby dragged Eddie around and unceremoniously manhandled him into the trunk of the car. While he was doing that Nathan was giving directions to Roxy. Anna heard the commotion behind her as the IO operatives in the mall lobbed a pair of canisters into the store. One was a typical military grade smoke grenade but the other was shiny aluminum about the size of a pop can. She registered the sudden flood of the electro-magnetic pulse and smiled. _That's not going to help you._ She ran for the smashed window and leapt out exactly the way she had seen Nathan do it. She had misjudged her leap slightly but compensated as she hit the bar. Swinging under, up, and back over like Nathan had done she dropped down. Below her Roxy was making pulling motions and she felt an increase as the pull of gravity in her area doubled. This combined with her own momentum gave her the energy needed to yank Sarah's greater mass clear of the window. Once she hit the ground Roxy reversed her pull to ease Sarah's fall enough that the boys could catch her. They tossed her into the trunk as well while Anna made for the dark blue motorcycle.

"Oh shit!" Dan swallowed his fear as their SUV leapt the curb and careened off a parked car. Joe proved to be an extremely capable, if manic, driver. "Oh my God!" As they swerved around the corner Dan looked up to see a man leaping out the third story window. As he fell he fired a pair of pistols. Dan had enough time to realize that the first three shots were at Wasniowski, Paul, and their Brazilian guide, a federal cop whose name Dan hadn't bothered to learn, before the fourth shot spider webbed their windshield. Their SUV lurched drunkenly and slammed into a decorative concrete planter.

"Fuck me." Watts complained from the back seat. Dan looked back and had a moment of fear. Watts was covered in gore, along with most of the rear seats but it wasn't his blood and brains that he was wiping from his face. Joe had been hit dead center in the middle of his face. The bullet had continued through the man's skull and buried itself into the back seat. Everything from his ears back was just gone. Joe had died instantly. "Damn, I wish we had some of those EMP grenades right about now." Watts shouted as he threw himself out of the car and brought his pistol out. Dan climbed out on the opposite side. He looked past the steam escaping from their radiator and across the remains of the parking lot. Kat stood about a hundred yards from him and they locked eyes. Watts was squeezing off shots that spanged off her stronger-than-steel body. It felt like they stood that way for a million years. She with a red pickup held poised over her head and him with a pistol that he didn't know who to point at. Her expression was unreadable. Was it disappointment? Regret? Apathy? He had no way of knowing. Then the sounds of approaching sirens echoed from the distance and more shots from a shattered window in the mall's upper floor joined Watt's equally ineffectual fire. She heaved the truck with only the barest grunt of effort and Dan and Watts dove in separate directions as the truck slammed hard into their crashed SUV. Then he watched her dive into the passenger seat of some sort of white sports car. The car jumped a curb and rapidly accelerated down the road. A dark blue motorcycle with a pale girl in black with purple hair following close behind. _Is that Roxy?_

Another IO team tried to cut them off but a flash of fire shot from the back window of the car and the SUV swerved up onto the steps of the cathedral across the street where it high-centered and rolled over onto its side.


	4. Chapter 4

Fortaleza Brazil

The Impreza swerved left onto the road and careened through traffic with all of the speed and agility of the Mach 5 it was painted to resemble. No sooner did an opening appear in the traffic than the little white car would slip into it. For Anna following behind it was startling to see. Nathan's reflexes seemed to be as quick as hers were and she began to ponder the possible nature of his abilities.

In the car Kat struggled to sit up or at least rollover. When they had escaped the mall she had literally dived into the open car door and was now sprawled across both seats. She had felt Mr. Lynch, who was sitting in the passenger seat, shove her legs up so that he could close the door. All of the swerving and jerking about as their get-away car had bounced over curbs had over-balanced her. She was struggling to right herself but only ended up with her feet sticking out the window, head in the driver's lap, and her butt in Mr. Lynch's face. Naturally, the driver was Nathan and he was wearing thin track pants. Centrifugal force was pressing her forehead into his muscular thigh and her check against his…! _Oh my gosh!_ It suddenly became a matter of life and death that she sit up and Kat began thrashing in her attempt to do so. She heard a grunt of pain and Mr. Lynch's voice. "Dammit Caitlyn! Settle down. And get your butt out of my face." He shoved her hips away from him. Kat managed to raise her head above the level of Nathan's groin but the car crunched against something and bounced hard. Her head bounced against the steering wheel and rebounded back into Nathan's lap with a grunt.

"I think we lost them." Roxy said in the backseat. She was kneeling on the seat and looking out the back window.

"Huh?" Bobby was sitting next to her. Something in his voice made her turn and look at him. He was sitting in the rear seat on the passenger side behind his father. Bobby looked as if he had been pole-axed. His mouth hung open and his eyes were as big as saucers. His cheeks practically glowed red like Rudolph's nose. He seemed to be mesmerized by something in the front seat. _What the hell?_ Roxy thought as she turned around in the seat and leaned over so she could see what he was looking at.

"Oh my God!" Roxy felt her own cheeks turn bright red. From this angle all she could see was the back of Nathan's head and the side of his cheek. He was blushing hard enough for it to show up against his deeply tanned skin and she could tell why. All she could see of Kat was her fiery red hair as Kat's head seemed to bob up and down on Nathan's crotch accompanied by the occasional lewd grunting noise. The car swerved right into an alley to the sound of blaring car horns and screeching brakes. They came to a halt outside a pair of double doors leading into a windowless brick building. The blonde girl they had encountered at the Mall was standing next to the door smoking a cigarette. They all piled out.

Jack Lynch looked around. They were only about seven blocks away from the mall. Too soon to stop and go to ground. He knew IO would be right behind them. He smiled despite himself when he saw his beloved Anna walking over from the parked motorcycle. The kids were standing as far away from each other as was polite, each looking at their feet, the brick wall, the sky, everywhere but at each other. _What the hell is wrong with these kids?_

Anna immediately registered that something was wrong as she approached. She didn't need her hyper-senses to spot the blooms of color on the cheeks of each of her children or to read the embarrassment of their body language. Kat and Nathan were standing practically with their backs to each other and were subconsciously keeping the car between them. Roxy and Bobby kept sneaking glances back and forth between them as if they were watching an invisible ping-pong match taking place over the hood of the car. It was obvious something had happened, probably something touching on sexuality. Whatever it was had involved Kat and Nathan. Something that Roxy and Bobby must have seen. Judging from the growing look of frustration on Jack's face Anna guessed that whatever had occurred had occurred without her husband's notice. She sighed. For such a smart man he had some unusual blind spots. He either thought of their kids as little children who needed their noses wiped or he thought of them as fully experienced and professional operators. It never occurred to him that they might inhabit some transitional stage in-between. "Well," she said brightly, "if we aren't continuing on we should probably get the other two out of the trunk." He jumped so high, you'd have thought Nathan had been stung by a bee. Anna suppressed a giggle as the trunk latch popped and the door lifted open before her. In the bouncing of their escape Sarah's unconscious body must have shifted. Eddie's face was buried in her cleavage. _Too bad you slept through it,_ she thought to her hound-dog son, _and good thing for you she did sleep through it._ She lifted Sarah from the back before anyone else had an opportunity to see her indelicate positioning.

"This way," Nathan said directing them to follow the blonde girl who was holding the door for them. Kat hefted Eddie out of the trunk and slung him over her shoulder like a sack of potatoes. The little group passed quickly through a narrow hallway leading to the back of a restaurant style kitchen. The kitchen was deserted and they passed quickly out to the street on the far side. Nathan led them to a tan panel van with an advertisement for Magdalena's Catering Service in bright pink letters. Nathan took a set of keys from the girl and opened the rear doors of the van. He gestured for them to put Eddie and Sarah inside.

As they were loading up Nathan gave the blonde girl a brotherly hug and they spoke rapidly in Portuguese. Anna could tell by his accent that he was not a native speaker. Her software automatically translated the conversation.

"Will you be okay?" the girl asked him.

"I will be fine but I won't be coming back to the loft. Keep an eye on your brother and Rudolpho," he answered.

"Are you going back to Texas?"

"No and I wouldn't tell you if I did. It is too dangerous. Leave the car and the motorcycle where they are. Lock up the shop and go home. If they find you tell them the truth just like we talked about. That you knew me from the club and that I occasionally borrowed the van."

"But, Laredo, what will happen to-?"

"Maria, I have to go. Remember, stay away from the loft. They will find it soon and anyone who goes there will be taken by the people who are hunting me." The girl bit her lower lip with worry but nodded. They all loaded up into the van with Nathan again at the wheel. Jack took the shotgun seat and everyone else found floor space in the back. It was cramped, but nothing like the little car had been. Nathan handed Jack a tan baseball cap as he pulled out into traffic. Anna watched Maria hug her arms to herself and walk slowly away down the street without a look back.

Ferris struggled to contain her nervousness as she waited. Sitting at a desk in the communications center of her airplane and waiting for her boss to deign to see her was killing her. The screen in front of her was black but she knew it wouldn't stay that way for long. Sure enough one of her technicians gave her the sign and she nodded the go ahead. The screen in front of her came to life with the face of Ivana Baiul. "Madame Director," Ferris said by way of introduction.

"What do you have?" Ivana didn't even look up from the papers she was reading on her desk.

"Nothing," Ferris replied bluntly. It was not in her nature to sugarcoat things. She felt it was best to tell it like it was and let the chips fall where they may. The only problem was that with Ivana those chips could fall a very long way and land in a very dark place. "Lyons and the Lynch Mob got away from the market and seem to have gone to ground somewhere in the country. I have the local LEOs at every airport, train station, and pier within twenty miles of Fortaleza and more Keepers are on their way from Boulder. We have a BOLO out across the country. The people I have here are continuing the groundwork. Once I get reinforcements we'll expand our lock down as far as we can."

"Casualties?"

"We lost five. Conner, Mickelson, and Lewiston in the Market; Wasnisowski and Paul outside. The locals lost three LEOs. One in the market with Lewiston and two in the shoot out in the parking lot. We also have six civilians killed, and seventeen injured outside in the firefight. All our people and the LEOs were headshots. The civies were just caught in the crossfire."

"What happened?"

"We're still putting the pieces together but it looks like another ambush from the start. My people found about thirty thousand dollars worth of copper wire strung throughout the Market's ventilation system. That was what threw off our comms. They hit us hard and then executed a well-thought out exit plan. We found the initial getaway vehicles less than a mile from the Market. They switched to a panel van from a local catering service. According to the eyewitness, Lyons was close to the owner's family and worked for the service at one time. He stopped working there a year ago but he would occasionally borrow the van. We have traffic camera's showing the van leaving the city but they only cover the city and major highways. We know they have left the city but that is all we know at the moment. I've got Grissom and Watts running down a lead on a residence for Lyons but I'm not holding out a lot of hope."

"What are we doing about the Brazilians?"

"At the moment we are playing the terror cell card. They are buying it for now but they are demanding collaboration on bringing them in. We also have a potential PR issue. It looks like Conner and Mickelson strong-armed their local when he protested the use of flash-bang grenades. Left him unconscious outside. The Brazilian top-brass is pissed."

"They lost three of their own. I don't blame them for wanting in. Tell them we will forward copies of everything the U.S. government has on terror cells in Brazil. Give me twelve hours to pull something together that will satisfy them. As for the rest, point out that the offenders are dead. If they want to do the paperwork they can be our guest."

"We are continuing to quarter the area. If we find anything I'll update you."

"This is beginning to get out of hand, Carol." Ivana stared straight into the camera. "I don't want Lynch thinking they can hit us without repercussions. I still want them alive but I don't see any reason to be gentle about it. You find them and you do what you have to. We're not worrying about collaterals anymore."

"I understand, Madame Director." The line went dead and Carol Ferris let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding.

Kat stared out at the rain and the rising sun from under the shelter of a deck made from rough cut planks and aluminum siding. Like the rest of the house it appeared to have been cobbled together from cast off materials and good intentions. The construction wasn't pretty but, like their host, it was surprising in its inventiveness. Odd pieces of plastic, metal, wood, and ceramic were affixed to the top of the aluminum roof. When they first approached she swore she even saw what looked like an old turtle shell stuck to the roof among the chaotic collection of flotsam. The purpose of these odd decorations became immediately apparent with the first rains and it was the reason she was standing on the deck in the first place. The rain striking the various materials and shapes made an oddly rhythmic sort of music. It was a primitive, disjointed music to be sure but it had an undeniable charm.

Nathan had driven the van to a rundown suburb of Fortaleza proper. There they had waited inside the stifling van for almost two hours, parked behind a quiet church, until Sarah and Grunge had finally come around from the sedatives they had been given. Sarah had promptly thrown up in the parking lot but insisted she would be okay. From there Nathan had led them cross-country in a long circling route for about a mile. As the sun was setting, they gathered alongside a small horde of day laborers at a muddy bus stop under a single street light that swarmed with all manner of insects. They boarded a bus and rode inland for about an hour. By that point Kat was all turned around but Anna assured her they were headed south, away from the city. The road climbed rapidly in a series of switchbacks. After forty minutes they left paved road behind and the dilapidated old bus struggled through the mud for another ten minutes before Nathan took them off the bus. She knew the Amazon rainforest was still some distance to the south but you couldn't tell from their surroundings. She felt like she was walking ever deeper into a Tarzan movie as Nathan led them for a mile or more through the muck and mud alongside the road. He had fished flashlights out of a bag he had taken from the car and led the way through the dark without a word. Sarah was struggling and got sick twice more during the long walk. She leaned against Kat and Anna repeatedly checked the girl's eyes with the flashlight; looking more and more worried each time she did it. By the time, Nathan led them off the road and down a muddy drive so overgrown with vegetation that it was invisible from the road, one of Sarah's eyes was swollen shut and the side of her face was one large purple and black bruise. Kat carried her through the darkness the last thousand yards.

The house was smothered in darkness but the interior was dry and clean. They found one room for the guys, a larger one for the girls, and a separate bedroom for Anna and Mr. Lynch. Nathan slept on the sofa. Each of the kids was exhausted and the adults elected to hold off on any interrogations until the morning. The rain had started again in the dead of night and the odd music had woken Kat. She lay awake for ten minutes trying to figure out the source of the odd sounds before she crept out of the room and into the living room. One side of the house, the side with the veranda, had sliding walls to let in the breeze. Two of the wall panels were pushed open to let in the still night air and the music was clearest from that direction. She paused as she came around the back of the sofa to stare down at their host. He was sprawled on his back with one arm flung over his face while the other and one leg dangled off the edge of the sofa. He had removed his shirt and jacket when he went to sleep and was bare-chested. She caught herself admiring the flat planes and sweeping curves of his muscular chest. He had broad shoulders and a narrow waist separated by an impressively chiseled stomach. Her eyes tracked the dark line of hair that ran from his navel to disappear beneath the waistband of his pants. She shook herself and retreated out onto the veranda. The fresh air helped to clear her head and cool her nerves. She walked as quietly as she could back and forth along the veranda, looking out into the gradually retreating darkness and listening to the odd chimes above her head. The rising sun revealed a slender strip of unchecked grass that quickly gave way to a wall of green brush and undergrowth crowned with broad-leafed trees she didn't recognize. She leaned her head wistfully against a post that supported the roof of the veranda and wondering what it would be like to live a quiet life here, a vision of her own version the Swiss Family Robinson with her as the mother. She imagined herself standing on this veranda with the sun shining and a gentle breeze blowing away the heat. In her mind 's eye, she held a swaddled infant against her hip as she watched a broad shouldered man hacking back the encroaching jungle with a machete. The man was stripped to the waist and she was just enjoying the view of his broad muscular back as he worked up a sweat. The baby in her arms coed and burbled happily. She smiled down at him. He looked so much like his father with his brown skin and unruly black hair but those large emerald eyes he got from his mother. Kat was startled from the oddly vivid dream by a voice from behind her.

"It's beautiful isn't it?" the voice was rich and dark and sweet like warm chocolate. She turned to see Nathan had come out on to the veranda behind her. He was still stripped to the waist and his hair was tussled and mussed from sleep. He stole her breath away as he stretched out the last of the kinks left from sleeping on the couch. Kat couldn't decide what to do. A part of her wanted to run screaming for the hills in a wild-eyed panic. Another part wanted to grab him, throw him down on the floor and have her way with him. A third part wanted him to do the same to her. A fourth part wanted to rip his arms off and beat him with them for startling her. Since she couldn't decide what to do, she elected to just respond with something witty.

"Erhm…huh?" she said. _Oh great, I sound like Grunge. Real smooth, Caitlyn!_ She felt her cheeks heat up with embarrassment.

He turned and focused on her with smoldering golden eyes. She felt like she was pinned in place, a gazelle frozen with fear in front of a hungry lion. He favored her with a small smile and gestured to the roof. She felt the heat of her blush expand to cover her whole body. "I bought this place from the bank. The guy who owned it used to be a cellist for the Fortaleza Symphony. The guy was some sort of musical genius but was crazy as a bedbug. He built the place all by himself using almost all recycled materials. Took him three years. He lost the place when his family had him committed, something about lighting his hair on fire. Anyway, the whole place makes this weird sort of music. When it rains…well, you can hear it can't you?" Kat nodded unable to take her eyes off his lips. They were thin and masculine but they looked so soft. She wanted to reach out and… "When the wind blows there are all these holes and bits sticking out that make the wind sing and warble like birds. He even strung about a million different kinds of bird feeders in the trees out there so the place is filled with birdsong during the day. It really is amazing." Nathan stepped out into the rain and let it fall onto his upturned face. After a moment he returned to the veranda and shook the rain from his hair before slicking it back. Kat unconsciously licked her lips at the sight of his damp torso gleaming in the morning light. "Of course, I chose it because you'd never find it if you didn't know it was here. I discovered the rest later." He moved past her towards the door and his arm brushed hers. Kat felt an electric thrill shoot through her. "I'm going to make some Earl Grey tea. Do you want some?"

"Isn't it a bit warm for hot tea?" Roxy asked from the doorway. She was standing with her arms crossed across her chest and was regarding the pair of them suspiciously.

"Not at all." Nathan said brightly. If he noticed her suspicion he gave no indication of it. "But I have some limeade if you'd rather have something cool." Kat felt a stab of jealousy as he turned those eyes and that amazing voice to her sister. For her part, Roxy's narrowed eyes went large and her arms dropped to her sides as the one-two punch of Nathan's gaze and voice worked its magic on her.

"I'll have some limeade," Kat said, "if that's okay."

"Your every wish is my only command," Nathan said and disappeared into the shadows of the house. If grunge had said something like that it would have been flippant but not when Nathan said it. There was something in his voice or his body language, some subtle subconscious thing that made it clear that he meant every word, utterly. Kat and Roxy stared at each other with open mouths and wide eyes. When Kat couldn't hold it in any longer she gave a little squeal of excitement and Roxy rushed into her arms. They did a joyful little Snoopy dance out there on the veranda, jumping and grinning like maniacs.

"Are you two okay?" Anna asked as she stepped out onto the veranda. Roxy and Kat jumped in surprise and quickly settled down. Unlike the girls, who were still dressed in the same clothes they had worn yesterday, Anna was wrapped in a white fluffy bathrobe that was several sizes too large and was scrubbing the last of the water from her hair with a bright green towel.

"Kat's got a boyfriend," Roxy singsonged, "A really hot boyfriend!"

"Oh stop, Roxy," Kat blushed prettily.

Anna raised an eyebrow. Of course, she had monitored the entire conversation from beginning to end. Her timing was not an accident either. She had calculated her arrival to give the girls time to settle down before Nathan arrived with the limeade. Sure enough, he appeared a few seconds later with a tray. There was a white plastic pitcher and two blue plastic cups. No ice but the pitcher was fresh from the refrigerator and plenty cold. There was also a tall clear glass of water. He poured the limeade for the girls and handed Kat her glass first. Anna heard the intake of breath from both of them as their fingers brushed in the exchange. He handed Anna her water last. It was room temperature. "How did you know?" she asked him.

"It's a gift," he chuckled.

"I think it's about time for us to get a better understanding of your gifts." Jack Lynch said emerging from the shadows of the hall. Anna noted that everyone jumped except herself, obviously, and Nathan.

Dan Grissom had his pistol out and watched the hall alertly. Watts was on the opposite side. The building manager unlocked the door then stepped out of the way while the two IO agents slipped quietly into the loft. What they found was a smartly furnished open space with several skylights to let in plenty of light. The décor had a sort of clean esthetic with lots of straight lines and blank negative spaces. There were several pieces of framed artwork scattered about the walls. From the track lighting and bright spots on the walls, Dan deduced that at one time there was a great deal more art on the walls that had recently been removed. From the door, they could see a chrome and steel kitchen and two doors leading to separate rooms in the back of the loft.

They moved cautiously across the room. Behind them, the forensics team and the building manager waited anxiously. Watts gestured to a large drafting table and a desk that had been set up against the wall on one side of the long room. On top of the desk was a home computer set-up. The forensics guys spread into the room and began their work, starting with comprehensive video and photographic records of the entire room. Watts approached the right hand door and cautiously pushed it open. It was a bathroom. A quick sweep confirmed it was an empty bathroom and they moved on to the second door. This opened into a hallway with two more doors on either side. Watts took the first one. "Bedroom," he said and gestured for Dan to lead the way to the last door. Dan carefully cracked the door while Watts stood to the side to cover. Dan pushed the door closed before Watts got a look inside.

"It's another bedroom," he said, "Looks empty, like a guest room or something. You start with that one and I'll toss this one." Watts nodded and moved back down the hall. When he was gone, Dan slipped into the last room and closed the door behind him. "Holy shit." He whispered as he looked around in wonder.

Nathan swallowed nervously but faced her husband squarely. "Did you want to wait for the others? The asian boy and the blonde kid will be here in a moment." Anna noticed the phrasing and judging from Jack's narrowed eyes he did also. Sure enough, she heard Eddie and Bobby approaching from the direction of the bedrooms. From their whispered conversation she knew Eddie was reassuring Bobby that Sarah would be alright.

Jack frowned. "Well, if it is only a moment I guess we can wait." He took a seat across from Anna where he could easily see Nathan and the veranda.

When Eddie and Bobby entered the room and saw everyone staring at them they stopped short. "Whatever it is," Eddie said earnestly, "it's not my fault."

"It's alright, boys." Anna rose to meet them. "We were just waiting for you so that Nathan could properly introduce himself. She gave them both hugs before gesturing to the sofa she had vacated. "Go ahead and sit down. I am going to the kitchen to start some breakfast. Don't worry; I can still hear everything just fine." The last was directed at Nathan as she slipped from the room.

Nathan nodded and faced the rest. He was now the only person standing so he took a seat on a handy ottoman. "Alright. Well, I guess I should start with how I planned all of this. You see I'm a precog with psychokinetic abilities."

"A what?" Roxy interrupted.

"A precog," Eddie supplied, "short for precognition. Dude, that is totally cool."

"It means he can see the future." Kat added. "You knew we were coming?"

"Oh yes," Nathan answered, "I've been planning it for months now. Well, years really."

"Why don't you start at the beginning." The tone of Jack's voice made it an order, not a suggestion.

"Right," Nathan took a deep breath and stared at his hands. When he looked up he was looking at Jack Lynch. "While I was at the Academy I spent a lot of time talking to Doctor Ivery. I snuck a peak at some of his books too. Normally, a Gen manifests at puberty but it can occur early if the Gen is subjected to extreme stress. That is what happened to me." He looked down at his feet, staring not at the floor but at the past. "When my brother and I were kids, about seven, our parents took us camping to the Grand Canyon. Dave and me, we were wild kids. Used to climb everywhere and get into stuff. Mom once had to call the fire department because we had climbed up onto a water tower. I think we were four or five. Anyway, one night we couldn't sleep so we decided to go rock climbing. It was a full moon night so we figured there was plenty of light. We'd been hiking all day and Mom and Dad were crashed. Well, we didn't want to wake them so we went down the ways a little where we found this gulley that led back into the rock. We were about one hundred and fifty feet up when I slipped. Dave was under me and I hit him as I fell. The bottom of the gulley, there were rocks. I don't remember hitting the bottom but I remember seeing those rocks coming right at me. When I came too, Dave was laying on his back. He was bent at a funny angle and there was blood everywhere. Turns out most of it was mine, not his. I had hit my head when I landed. Head wounds bleed really bad. Neither of us were in any shape to go get help and we couldn't cry for help. It was tough to breathe. Broke most of my ribs, Dave did too. I don't know how long we were there. Laying in that gulley all broken and bleeding over the rocks. It was dark when I first came too and it was full daylight by the time my dad found us." He was quiet for a long time but no one moved a muscle. They just waited for him to continue.

"We were both pretty messed up. At first they didn't think either of us was going to make it. Dave got out of the ICTU first. His injuries weren't as bad as mine but he'd broken his back. He was paralyzed from the neck down. I had broken just about everything that can be broken but it all healed. Took a while but it did. It was while I was still in the hospital that I first started having the visions. At first I thought I was hallucinating or dreaming. I'd see people come into my room, a nurse or my parents or somebody, and then they'd actually walk into my room. Over the next year I learned that it wasn't a hallucination. It took me three years to understand it. To learn to control it. Mostly trial and error stuff, you know?

By then Dave was dead. I don't know if he ever changed or not. It was MRSA. The infection got a hold of him and they couldn't stop it. Mom left my dad shortly after that. She just couldn't take it. We were fraternal twins. Didn't look at all alike. Most people didn't even believe we were brothers. Mom used to tell me that Dave looked like our father. Our biological father. I never knew him but I think my mom never stopped loving him. Anyway, after Dave died she couldn't stay. By that point I knew enough to see it coming and I tried to change it. Some things can't be changed.

I started manifesting my psycho kinetic abilities only about a year before I went to the Academy. By that point I knew enough of my future to know I needed to keep my abilities a secret."

"You mean Ivery and the others never knew you had manifested?" Eddie asked.

"Nope." Nathan answered. "I fudged the tests to throw the results off. Eventually, they would have figured it out but before that came the lock down and the escape."

"Did you know what was going to happen?" Jack asked, "That you and the others would be imprisoned?"

"Yes."

"Did you know before you went to the Academy or after you got there?"

"Before."

"Why did you go if you knew what they were going to do to you," Kat interrupted, "To us?"

Nathan looked right at her for a moment then he said, "It was the only way to meet Sarah."

"Why did you want to meet Sarah?" Bobby asked trying to keep the heat out of his voice.

"So that I could meet the rest of you."

"Why?" Kat asked.

"C'mon Kat," Eddie interrupted before Nathan could answer. "We're like his destiny and stuff."

"I don't think you're his destiny, Grunge." Roxy said with a meaningful look at Kat who blushed but didn't say anything.

"We're getting off track." Jack interrupted. "What happened after the breakout? Where is the rest of your pod?"

"We were all in the cells when the Black Razors tore the doors off," Nathan said. "They led our pod out along with two other groups and told us to split up. They gave each pod a duffle bag full of money and a tag with a name and an address. Told us the person on the tag would arrange to create new identities for us. They warned us we couldn't go home or we'd be caught."

"Who was in your pod?" Kat asked.

"There were four of us," Nathan said. "Myself, Eric Sanchez, Michael Widmer, and Lindsey Summers."

"What happened to them?" Jack asked.

"Once we put some distance between us and the Academy we had an argument. Mike and Lindsey wanted to go to the cops. They still believed that the government couldn't get away with things like that. Eric and I knew better. We wanted to keep going, get our fake IDs and disappear. I tried to convince everybody to stick together until after we got the IDs but Mike and Lindsey wouldn't listen to reason. They wanted to shut IO down and were convinced that if they could blow the whistle then the white hats would ride to the rescue. Finally, we split the money and went our separate ways. Eric and I decided to head south of the border where we could blend in better and couple grand in twenties would stretch farther. We never saw Mike and Lindsey again."

"They were caught," Kat said "IO has them locked up in a dungeon somewhere."

"Yeah," Nathan said, "I figured they'd get caught."

"But you didn't know?" Jack asked.

Nathan nodded. "I can't always see any future. Mostly, I can just see my future. Stuff that I am a part of. Once they went their own way I couldn't read them but we were pretty sure that was what was going to happen."

"What happened to Sanchez?"

"He's dead," Nathan looked down at his hands. "When Sanchez manifested he found he could run like you wouldn't believe. He could run and run and run. We were just south of Tijuana. Our plan was to keep moving south but we'd been on the run for so long. Money can buy you just about anything in Tijuana, even if you are a teenage kid, and we looked older than we were. We'd been drinking and I'd just bought a bike. Eric challenged me to a race. We were doing pretty close to 90 when he tripped. The skid took him across the road and straight into an oncoming car. I just kept going. There wasn't much left besides a stain and I had to get out of there before the cops showed up. I got back to our hotel room, grabbed the bags and took off. Eventually I ended up down here and decided I had run as far as I was going to run."

"How long have you been in Fortaleza, dear." Annie asked as she set a platter of sliced fruit on a little coffee table. They were some sort of melons but Kat had never seen this kind before.

"Uhm, about a year and a half." Nathan answered.

"How did you afford all of this stuff?" Jack asked waving to the house around them.

"I bet you used your powers to win the lottery, didn't you?" Eddie interjected.

"Close," Nathan grinned. "But the lottery attracts too much attention. Online poker is a lot easier and more covert. I have a few offshore accounts set up in different identities. I have check cards for each and I log on and play poker with each of them. With my abilities it is pretty simple to predict how the game is going to go. I keep my winnings spread out and small but they add up. I take in about ten grand a month."

Bobby whistled. "That's not bad."

Anna had settled herself on the arm of Jack's chair with her arm comfortably resting across his shoulders. She could feel the tension there. "Why did you reveal yourself now? With your abilities you had to know that being seen on the video would attract attention from IO."

Nathan just shrugged. "It was time." He said mysteriously.

"Time for what?" Jack insisted.

"Time to be found. By them and by you."

Dan leaned his weight back against the door as he slowly scanned the crowded room. He was standing in what was clearly an artist's studio. There was a low table and a couple of chairs in one corner. A large wooden easel with a framed canvas was set near the center of the room. A shelving unit nearby was stacked with the tools of the artist's trade; brushes, paints, bottles of paint thinner, etc. There were at least a hundred paintings in the room. A few were hung on the wall but most were staked on tables or leaning against the walls or the few pieces of furniture in the room. Dan began to examine each of the paintings. The nearest one caught his attention. It was an oil painting, as were most of the others. It had a sort of surreal realism. The figure in the painting rendered in exquisite, almost photorealistic detail but at the same time was almost too perfect to be believed. More importantly to him was that he recognized the figure in the painting. In fact, he recognized the figure in all of the paintings he could see. They were all the same model and she was equally perfect in each one. He flipped through them quickly as he worked his way around the room. The fiery red hair, the brilliant green eyes, the unbelievably long legs…every painting in the room was of Kat! There were paintings of every size imaginable from small ones that might sit in a frame on a bed stand to large frames that would hang in a museum, each painting rendered in exquisite, almost loving, detail. Even more disturbing was he recognized some of the scenes. There was Kat sitting in the black charger outside the park in Escondido. There was a close up of Kat playing with Drew. There were scenes that he had never seen before. One showed Kat, Roxy, Anna, and Sarah walking abreast of each other. They were each dressed to the nines and judging from the background it was some sort of club. He was working his way around the room when he stopped in front of a massive framed canvas at the back of the room that was leaning against the wall and covered with a white sheet. He pulled it off and stared in open-mouthed astonishment. He knew this image too, a life sized portrait of Kat in a little black dress. How could he ever forget it? It was the night of their first date together. She looked just as radiant in the portrait as she had looked then and the image brought back all of the emotions of that moment, the awe and the barely controlled lust and the admiration. The artist had not only captured Kat's physical image but he had captured her essence as well. The unconscious sex appeal was resplendent in the pose and the attention of the figures in the background but there was also the innocence, the nervousness, the angelic charm, and the sparkling intelligence, the hidden depths. He was just stunned. Who the hell is this guy? The frame had a little card for the name of the painting and he glanced at it. It read _The Red Rose of Destiny_. Dan stepped back and took in the whole room. He would have thought a room filled with painting after painting of the same woman would have been creepy. Hell, it should have been creepy but it wasn't. Something in the artist's technique carried the artist's sensibilities as well. There was a sort of innocence to the paintings. Even the bizarre image of "Battlefield-Kat" (she was straddling a low wall in urban camo with amber shooting glasses and an M-60 machinegun cradled Rambo-like in one arm) carried a sense of admiration rather than obsession.

Dan examined the easel more closely. The canvas on the easel was the only one that didn't picture Kat. It showed him. It wasn't painted; it was a quick charcoal sketch like the artist had just started work but it clearly showed his face. Under the face was a large arrow pointing down. He nearly wet himself when he followed the arrow. On the floor under the easel was a wooden apple crate. Inside the crate were four jugs of paint thinner arraigned around four sticks of what looked exactly like dynamite. The dynamite was rigged to a simple but clearly working timer. The timer showed four minutes but it wasn't counting down. There was something else tucked in with the homemade bomb. A white envelope with the words _Read Me_ written on the flap. Dan took a deep breath and carefully retrieved the envelope. Slitting it open with a finger, he removed and read the short note inside.

_It would not be good if IO got their hands on the things in here. The bomb will take care of them, just switch on the timer. Please don't tell her about this. It will only upset her. Thanks for all your help. – Nathan._

_PS: You have to take the shot. Your life depends on it. Don't worry she will be fine._

"What the hell?" Dan whispered. He examined the paintings in the room for the third time. This time he looked at them as if he were an investigator looking for clues to the whereabouts of Kat and her friends. It was all there. No one painting had it all but the pieces were there just waiting to be put together. Without hesitating, he tucked the note into his breast pocket and then leaned down and switched on the timer. He gave it a handful of seconds to make sure it was working and then bolted from the room and slammed the door behind him. "There's a bomb!" he screamed at the top of his lungs. "Everybody out! Now! Go! Go! Go!" Watts came bolting out of the other bedroom but Dan shoved him down the hall towards the exit. He could see the forensics guys dropping everything and rushing towards the door. Dan shoved everybody ahead of them down the stairs. The loft was in an old industrial building so he didn't have to worry about neighbors. They reached the street level with about forty seconds to spare and then the windows of the loft shattered in the explosion. A huge plume of fire followed by a cloud of thick black smoke shot up into the sky. Dan and the rest of the IO team checked themselves for injuries and then waited for the fire department to arrive. If anyone noticed Dan's agitation, they assumed the explosion caused it. Dan tried not to think about what would happen if they only knew the truth.

The conversation had become an interrogation with Jack Lynch asking the questions in a stern and clipped manner. Nathan answered each question to the best of his ability, elaborating where appropriate, but Anna could sense his growing annoyance with the tone of her husband's questioning. Anna was impressed with his ability to recall the smallest details until she realized that with his ability to foresee the future he had probably examined the incidents in the mall repeatedly from a variety of angles before the events had even occurred. The rest of the kids sat in silence. They recognized Jack Lynch's growing anger. It finally bubbled over when Nathan described shooting the two IO agents in the bathroom. "Why did you feel the need to kill the two agents in the bathroom?"

"If I didn't kill them then, you would only kill them later." Nathan responded.

"That isn't the point," Jack snapped. "They were unarmed and no threat to you."

"They would have been threat to others later," Nathan shrugged. "My way was better."

"Better? We try our damnedest to avoid killing people. Your way escalates the violence and pushes us into a war with Ivana's goons. How is that better?"

"You're already in a war!" Nathan snapped back. "The only choice you have left is; are you going to fight it in your backyard or theirs." Nathan was standing now and he leaned towards Jack, who remained sitting. "Like it or not you are going to fight them. You don't get to hide from it forever. You don't get to walk away with clean hands." Anna saw the fire in the young man's eyes. This wasn't something he simply believed. It was something he knew. A part of her recognized that he knew it because he had seen it. She felt a chill shudder through her. The rest of her children sat with their jaws agape. It wasn't everyday that a total stranger spoke to Jack Lynch so…forcefully. For her children it was especially astounding. They saw Nathan as one of them, a new member of the family, and now he was fighting with the father figure.

"I have not had clean hands in a very, very long time." Jack's voice was like ice. "Just because my hands are dirty doesn't mean that yours have to be too. Take it from someone who knows. You don't want to be in a hurry to dirty your hands. Some stains never go away."

There was a long moment of uncomfortable silence. Nathan sat back down but he held his head up and refused to look away from Jack Lynch's eye. The rest of the kids didn't know where to look and their eyes roved anxiously from face to face. Anna stepped in to save the day, just as she always did. "There isn't much we can do to change what has already happened," she said. "We need to figure out what we are doing from here and how we intend to get out of the country.

Jack nodded. "We can't stay here forever. IO will find this place eventually but we can't just take a plane either. By now IO will have alerted every border crossing in the country and probably has agents watching every airport and port facility as well."

"So what's your plan for getting us out of the country?" Eddie asked Nathan eagerly. "Gonna smuggle us in steamer trunks? Maybe you've already arranged a ride on some pirate's boat?"

Nathan just shrugged and said, "I have no idea."

"What?" Bobby sputtered, "You planned that escape from the mall down to the minute but you don't have any plan on getting out of the country?"

"I'm not all-knowing," Nathan snapped, "I can't see everything. I have no idea how you get out of the country. You're not stupid, figure it out your damn selves." Nathan stalked out of the room.

"Nathan is right about that," Jack said quietly. "We can't rely on a fortune-teller to make all of our decisions and we aren't stupid." He looked at each of the children in turn. "So how would you get out of the country?"

"Well," Bobby started listing the things they already knew, "public transport is out. So that means no commercial flights or boats. What about smugglers?"

"You mean drug runners don't you?" Roxy asked. "I don't think I'd want to support those kinds of people. What about a charter under assumed names?"

Eddie shook his head. "We'd have to disguise ourselves too. They'll have our descriptions to check against and we don't exactly blend out here."

I don't blend anywhere." Kat snorted.

"We could always walk back." Bobbie said.

"Sure Bobby," Roxy laughed, "we're going to walk to California from Brazil."

"We don't have to go all the way to California," Bobby responded. "IO's watching the airports in Brazil. We could take a car or a bus to someplace close to the border, slip across on foot and then get transportation from somewhere on the other side."

"IO will have alerted any country that borders Brazil to look for their 'terrorists' too," Jack said. "It is standard procedure." Jack saw the look of disappointment on his son's face and held up his hand to forestall any further comment. "But it is a good idea. It is easier for one person to sneak across a border than a half dozen. Anna will stay here and keep an eye on things while I go. I'll have to go farther than just across the border but once I'm outside the cordon I can make my way to Escondido and pick up the jet. Then I'll fly it back to pick everyone up."

"That isn't the best use of our resources, dear," Anna said. "I don't need to sleep and I can blend in much better than you can. I can also travel much faster than you can on foot. It is better if I go and you stay here with the kids." Only she could hear the slight trip-trip of her husband's heart beat slightly faster. She couldn't decide if it was the thought of sending her into danger or the thought of being left alone with the kids that elicited the reaction but she kissed him on his forehead and said, "Don't worry, love, everything will be fine."

Jack Lynch didn't seem to agree but he didn't say anything.

"What is it?" Ivana asked skeptically. She was standing, posing really, with her long slender arms folded underneath her breasts. Dr. Ivery wrenched his eyes away from the resultant lift this stance created in her profile and stepped past her to take the gun from his assistant. It was surprisingly heavy for its size and shaped roughly like a rifle. It had a shoulder stock attached to a receiver and a rear grip with trigger. Where the bolt assembly would be in a normal rifle was a vaguely squared off-tube mounted to a parallel over-under rail system. The lower rail where a rifle's barrel would normally be was a vaguely triangular tube that ended in a clear glass aperture with a front sight and grip. The upper rail mounted an optical sight and targeting laser. On the right hand side of the front grip, where the thumb would rest on a right-handed shooter, was a selector switch

"Repeated encounters have shown that our biggest obstacle in securing the capture of Lynch and his bunch is Caitlyn Fairchild. Her resistance to standard weaponry is a serious threat that must be overcome. The video from the Fortaleza incident shows Fairchild shielding her compatriots from harm using her own body and other obstacles." Ivery said as he turned to face his boss. "Ferris suggests in her preliminary report that Lynch may have developed a means to resist the EMP capture methods that we have devised. It was felt that a more _forceful_ means of suppressing Fairchild's abilities might be necessary. This is a _Maser_ rifle. It works like a laser only instead of using coherent light it uses microwaves to excite water molecules in the body."

"How does this help us?"

"We believe that Fairchild's talents are the related to the manipulation of mass. Since the microwave energy has no mass to speak of we believe her talents won't work against it."

"She'll be vulnerable," Ivana considered, "maybe too vulnerable. The goal is to capture them alive. All of them."

"The rifle's power settings are fully adjustable. At the lowest settings there is merely a mild burning sensation. It feels like the beginnings of a sunburn, really."

"How is a mild sunburn going to stop Caitlyn Fairchild?"

"Oh! Well, it's not. But the power of the rifle is adjustable. At the third setting here," Ivery pointed to the selector switch on the front grip, "the sensation is reported to be quite painful and debilitating. The effects are purely temporary with little or no permanent injury at low settings. Operators will be directed to start with the lower settings first, nothing higher than a three."

"Alright," Ivana said after a moment's consideration, "Alert Ferris that it is on the way. I want one per team for the Black Razors and everyone to receive training on it. Is there anything else, doctor?"

"Ah, no ma'am." Ivery seemed on the verge of bowing and scraping on the floor. "I'll take two of my techs and oversee the training personally." Ivana nodded and swept gracefully from the room. Ivery released the breath that he had been holding in. He took the rifle to his workbench where he removed the front grip so that he could access a tiny compartment in the grip itself. He carefully removed a computer chip from the compartment and replaced it with another one from a plastic dish on the bench. A moment later he handed the reassembled rifle to an assistant to pack for transit. He had already replaced the control chip in the rest of the rifles. As his assistant left and he was alone in the room, Ivery tucked his hands into his armpits. He wasn't cold he just wasn't sure he could keep them from shaking any longer. "I'm sorry," he whispered. Even he wasn't sure who he was apologizing to. Was it Ivana? Maybe. He had lied to her and tampered with IO equipment. She would be furious but he was certain that he could blame it on faulty programming in the computer chips. There would be consequences but nothing he couldn't live with. Was it Fairchild? Maybe. She was such a bright, happy child. He had truly enjoyed their discussions back at the academy. But that little girl was gone, replaced by an angry amazon turned terrorist. He hadn't had a decent night's sleep since their last confrontation when she had locked him in steel box. He would wake up at night covered in sweat, his night terrors filled with images of an enraged Fairchild stepping out of the shadows carrying the body of poor Lindsey Summers in her arms. _You did this, _she would accuse him. _No,_he would cry in his dreams. _It was an allergic reaction to the drugs. It wasn't my fault._ But in his dream Caitlyn didn't care what his excuses were. She didn't care what his reasons were. It was always different, the ways she would break him. Sometimes she would use her fingers to poke holes in his skull the way she had poked holes in the steel roof of the box. Other times she would pull his digits from his limbs one by one: sometimes starting with his fingers and sometimes starting with his toes. Last night's dream had been particularly gruesome with Fairchild wrapping his intestines around the beams in his summer cabin and using them as ropes to hang him. He shivered and hugged himself tighter in an effort to control it. He had to do something about this fear. Logic told him that only by eliminating the threat could he ensure his safety. He had seen firsthand what Caitlyn and the rest of the Gen 13s could do. Ivana would never sanction eliminating them. IO had invested too much money and time into the Gen project. Besides, some of them could be controlled if you got to them soon enough. Some of them but not all of them and not Caitlyn Fairchild; she would never allow herself to be controlled. That left only one solution.


	5. Chapter 5

_ I apologize for the long delay in getting this installment out. It was originally intended to be the final chapter but it sort of got away from me. So the next installment will be the final climactic installment. I am putting this out now so that the individual installments don't get too big and to let everyone know that I haven't just dropped off the face of the earth. I hope you enjoy it and I will endeavor not to take so long on getting the last bit out. _

Carol Ferris was a woman with a mission. Actually, she was a woman with several missions but the one she was most focused on was not the one her employers were focused on. There were many descriptors that could be used to describe Carol – brilliant, beautiful, tough, and professional were all appropriate. Cold-hearted bitch was not. Many of her colleagues were, certainly Ivana would qualify, but not Carol. All encompassing ruthlessness was something of an occupational hazard in her line of work. It was all too easy to just accept that the ends always justified the means, that the bad guys were always wrong and the good guys were always right even when they weren't. Carol avoided that particular pitfall with a simple trick. Every morning she leaned close to the bathroom mirror until all she could see was the reflection of her eyes and she stared into her own soul for at least ten minutes. Try it sometime. It is harder than you think to face your own demons head on. This morning was harder than most but before she was done she knew what was most important. She leaned away from the mirror. "Not another one," she said. She had already lost five good agents to Jack Lynch and his Cheerleaders here in Brazil alone. That didn't begin to account for those who came before. All good men and women like Julius Gierling; he was the first death she could definitely tie to Caitlyn Fairchild and company. Carol felt every death keenly, like a sharp spike in her breast. She promised herself that she would do everything she could to ensure that there were no more spikes added to the ones already there.

There was a knock at the door to her hotel room. Carol and her crew had taken over a small hotel not far from the airport. The command center on the plane had cots if they were needed but that wouldn't work long term and it was beginning to look like they were going to be in Brazil for a while. Old habits made her check her weapon, the peephole, and the hallway before letting her senior forensics technician in. Dr Holly Raj was not what you would expect. First "Holly" was short for Hollister and he was a former All-American defensive tackle for Florida State University. He was still an avid power-lifter with numerous trophies to his credit and arms that could stand in for tree trunks if they were a little smaller – the arms not the trees. The guy was so huge he had to turn slightly sideways to fit through her door. Between his numerous traditional Fijian tattoos and his beetle-browed, bullet-shaped head, he looked more like some gangland muscle then a one of the best forensic pathologists in the world.

"What do you have for me, Holly?" Carol asked him as she poured her second cup of morning coffee. She had brought the cup from home. It had an image of an angry cat and the caption read _What are you looking at? _It took half of the full pot but she only filled the cup half way. The rest of it she filled with mint-flavored non-fat creamer and enough Sweet&Low to embalm a body. She held up the pot by way of offering him some but he waved her off with a dinner plate sized hand.

"I have the findings from the loft that they firebombed." Holly set a thick folder on the table and then settled onto the couch. "There may be some issues," he said with a frown. It occurred to her that when Holly frowned he looked remarkably scary and was probably a terror on the football field. She wasn't worried. Not that Holly wasn't physically intimidating but at the end of a stellar collegiate career he had found Buddha and sworn off all violence. He wouldn't even push his way through a crowd these days.

"This is only my second cup," she grinned. "Can you summarize it for me?"

"Agent Grissom reported that he found what he described as an IED in a back bedroom."

"Yeah, some sort of guest room or something. He said the IED was behind the bed."

"That may be the problem." Holly said. "Look at page six."

Ferris flipped to the sixth page of the report and scanned the page. It was like some sort of deranged shopping list. This many kilograms of wood chips, that many grams of canvas fibers, etc. She showed her confusion with a shrug. "We believe that they used paint thinner as an accelerant. Most of the damage was done by the fire and there was relatively little explosive energy. The fire initially burned quite hot but the temperature quickly fell off and it burned cool but long. That supports the paint thinner conclusion. The problem is the particulate remains."

"The what?"

"The particulate remains. Bits of furniture, fabric, and what-not that was left over after the fire."

"Okay. So what is the issue."

"I went over the description of the room that agent Grissom provided. He described a fairly typical bedroom, dresser, bed, and a nightstand. A few pictures on the walls and a curtain on the windows. There isn't enough wood remains to suggest that much furniture and we found a lot more canvas than a few pictures could account for."

"What are you saying?" Ferris was starting to get a cold feeling in the pit of her stomach.

"All I am saying is that there are discrepancies. There could be any number of reasons for that. I can't access the personnel files but my impression is that Grissom isn't an investigator. He was some sort of grunt wasn't he?"

"Marine. Force Recon."

"Well, there you go," Holly said with a smile. "You can't expect a grunt to get the details right the way a trained investigator would. He probably saw a table and a dresser and just remembered a bedroom because that was the closest thing his subconscious had for a reference."

Ferris wasn't convinced. Holly had zero military experience. He didn't understand. Recon Marines were expected to be the eyes and ears of their regiments. Spotting and correctly remembering little details was their stock and trade. "You said there was a lot of canvas?"

"Yes, as well as large amounts of paint thinner, and other paint residue. It was probably some sort of artist's work space. Could have been a canvas tarp in addition to some additional paintings or even canvases that hadn't been used yet."

Ferris recalled several reports mentioned that Lyons was an artist. Several comments suggested he was pretty good as well. Holly's conclusion that the room was an artist's studio was probably accurate but that still didn't explain Grissom's report. The more she looked at the after-action reports the more convinced she became that the mall had been an ambush from the very start. Somebody knew they were coming and where they would be when. Lynch's mob slipped out of the net through the one point that their perimeter was weakest. They also knew how to disrupt IO's communications without arousing suspicion. The copper wire in the ventilation hadn't completely blocked their communications. If it had then red flags would have gone up all over the place and Ferris would have pulled her people back. That all pointed to inside knowledge. Was there a mole secretly helping the Gens from inside IO?

It wasn't impossible, of course. Hell, Lynch had been one and where there's one there can be another. There had been rumors that the Powers-That-Be, meaning Ivana, suspected that Director Colby was the mole but events had shown that was clearly not the case. Could the mole be someone lower on the totem pole? Someone less visible? Still, she wasn't convinced it was Dan Grissom. For one thing, the timing was wrong. Dan arrived too late for some of the events involved. For another her gut argued against it. Dan was a solid, dependable guy. He knew right from wrong and was smart enough to see for himself the dangers these kids posed to the country and the world. No, Dan Grissom was no traitor. She was sure of that. But. She had been sure of Jack Lynch too.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the buzzing of her phone. "Ferris," she said.

It was the duty officer at the command center. "Doctor Ivery and his team just arrived with the new gear," he said.

"Get a ready alert to the team leaders. I want them trained on the new guns first. Have my car pulled around I'll be downstairs in ten."

The sun was shining. A month ago Kat would have thought that would have been obvious. It was Brazil, right? The sun was always shining in Brazil. Except that wasn't true. If it hadn't been so damn hot she would have sworn that she spent the last week in Seattle instead of South America. The sky was an unbroken sea of gray clouds and the schedule was depressingly redundant. The rain would begin about three thirty in the morning and continue until almost nine. Then the world would be shrouded in mist as the heat built to unbearable levels until it peaked after four in the afternoon. More rain until seven thirty followed by more mist, this time as the water vapor condensed out of the air instead of rising to join it. Away from the coast, there was very little wind and the heat and the humidity combined to suck the life right out of a person. Nathan's little house in the jungle had no air conditioning and no pool. Roxy had taken to standing in front of the open refrigerator door in an attempt to beat the heat. Everyone else just lay around the house like slugs or at least almost everyone else. Nathan and Mr. Lynch didn't seem to notice the heat. She could understand Nathan, he'd been here for two years and had lived in Texas before that. She figured he was acclimated to the weather. That didn't explain Mr. Lynch, who still wore nothing but black. His only concession to the heat was that his shirts had short sleeves.

Kat emerged from the kitchen holding a bottle of blessedly cool orange soda and stepped onto the veranda. At least she thought it was orange soda. It was orange in color but she couldn't read the writing on the bottle and the only pictures were of a smiling cartoon sun sporting huge red sunglasses. She took a big swig and made a face. Sarah glanced over from a nearby chair. "What's the matter?" Sarah had emerged from the bedroom after the first day. She looked horrible. Even now, almost a week later, one side of her face was still smeared with the purple and yellow stains of a healing bruise. Most of the swelling was gone and her strength was returning although she was obviously still in a lot of pain. Mr. Lynch looked her over every day for signs of any permanent damage but so far he hadn't found any; much to everyone's relief.

"It's papaya," Kat said as she set the soda down on the edge of the deck and sat down in the sun. "I hate papaya."

"Give it here," Sarah said, "I'll drink it if you don't want it." Kat was happy to oblige. Roxy wandered out from the house and plopped down next to Kat.

"Gawd, how much longer do we have to stay here?" Roxy complained. Unlike Kat Roxy's legs swung freely back and forth above the ground.

"Mister Lynch got a call from Annie last night. She's made it to Costa Rica." Kat replied. "She thinks she can make the US-Mexico border in a few more days. If everything goes well we'll be home by next Tuesday."

"Five more days?" Roxy couldn't keep the whine out of her voice. "I'm not going to last five more days in this frigging sauna. How can you stand it?"

Sarah looked down over her sunglasses. They were those large Hollywood style glasses that managed to hide much of the bruising on her face. "It's not so bad if you just relax a little."

Roxy harrumphed and went back to kicking her feet. The three young women sat in silence for a few more minutes until Kat's wristwatch began beeping. She switched the alarm off and all three girls turned toward the rear door to the attached garage expectantly. It wasn't long before Nathan emerged from the garage. "Right on time," Roxy said. He was only wearing a pair of olive drab shorts, sandals, and a gray towel slung carelessly over one shoulder. His deeply tanned skin glistened with a light sheen of sweat and the chiseled muscles of his torso were pumped from his daily workout.

"Looks like traps and delts today." Kat commented.

"Mmm, traps and delts." Roxy looked up at Kat. "Which ones are those again?"

"Those big muscles close to the base of the neck are the trapezius muscles. The deltoids are the shoulders just above the biceps." Kat whispered as Nathan saw the girls and walked over.

"Enjoying the sun, girls?" he asked with a smile. They all made affirmative noises. He toweled the sweat from his face and hair.

"Aw dude, you're killin' me here!" Eddie complained as he joined them on the veranda. "At least put a shirt on or somethin'."

Nathan grinned. "Actually, I was just about to go take a shower." He held the towel in front of his waist. It was either an innocent act of subconscious modesty or a diabolically successful ploy to draw attention to his washboard stomach. "After that I was going to walk into the market to get some more provisions. You guys eat enough for an army." Nathan looked Kat straight in the eye. "Does anyone want to join me?"

Kat almost asked if he meant the walk to the market or the shower but was saved by Grunge. "Yeah sure, I'll go."

Roxy rolled her eyes and grinned at Kat. "Oh no you don't." she said. "You promised to help me with the laundry today." She leaned over and whispered, "You owe me for this," into Kat's ear.

"What?" Grunge looked at her in surprise. "You said we'd do that after dinner."

"There's no time like the present." Roxy leapt to her feet and pulled Grunge back inside by his arm. They almost collided with Jack Lynch.

"Where are those two off to in such a hurry?" he asked.

"I think they are going to get the laundry done." Kat said with a smile.

"About time," he grimaced. "I asked her to do it two days ago. Are you done in the garage, Nathan? Bobby and I are going to work on the heavy bag."

"Just finished up," Nathan replied. "I was going to grab a shower and then make a market run."

Jack Lynch frowned. "I'm not sure I like the idea of anyone going out. IO is still out there."

"But we can't go without food, sir." Nathan answered.

"Kat can go with him." Sarah offered helpfully.

Kat gave Sarah a _thank you!_ look and said, "Sure. I'm not doing anything right now."

"Maybe Bobby and I should-"

"The bigger the crowd – the more attention it draws." Sarah quoted one of his own maxims back to him.

"Sarah's right and we won't be gone long." Kat jumped in. "You and Bobby go ahead and do whatever you were going to do. I can- We can handle this."

Jack Lynch was a highly trained operative and an expert at gathering human intelligence. Even if he wasn't, a blind man could see the pleading in Kat's eyes. He sighed. Sometimes this father-figure shit was for the birds. "Alright," he said, "but be careful and don't take too long." Kat clapped her hands happily before she could stop herself. Her face flushed as scarlet as her hair.

"Well," Nathan said, "I guess I'd better get that shower done. I don't want to keep a lady waiting." He smoothly made his exit. Ten minutes later he and Kat were walking up the packed dirt drive that led to the road. Kat kept sneaking glances at him out of the corner of her eye. He had changed into a set of tan walking shorts and a maroon t-shirt. He was tall for a guy but she was still a good six inches taller than he was and with her disproportionately long legs her stride was naturally longer than his. Narrow purple sunglasses shaded his eyes but she could feel his gaze settle on her whenever her long strides would pull her ahead of him. When this happened she would mentally berate herself for her freakish height and force herself to slow down. Then she would start worrying about being too tall for him. Men didn't like women who were too tall, didn't they? She would get so lost in her thoughts that a few minutes later the whole cycle would begin again. He walked with a sort of casual assurance that both intimidated and thrilled her.

They walked in silence until they reached the outskirts of the little village that they planned to visit. Then Nathan faced her directly. "You know," he said, "I usually like my dates to be a little taller and not talk so much but for you I'll make an exception."

Kat stared for a moment and then started laughing when what he said finally registered. "I guess I am a little on the short side, aren't I?" she said with a shy grin.

"Were you short before the change?" he asked.

"I-" she searched his face for a moment to see if he was still teasing her. "No, not really. I was regular height. Just skinny. How about you?"

"Me?" he laughed, "Not short, but… Well, let's just say the phrase 'ninety pound weakling' could have been invented for me. Dave was the one who got all the brawn in the family. Even though I am older by ten minutes we always called him the 'big brother' because he was so much bigger than I was."

"My best adjective was 'mousey.' People never seemed to notice me, except maybe to look down on me."

"And now they look up to you," he said, "but I bet you still don't look down on them. Do you?"

Kat smiled. She knew what he was trying to say. "I guess I don't. I mean, I'm not any better than anybody else. Just because I look like… Just because I look the way I do."

"You are better than a lot of people, Kat. Not because of the way you look or because of the things you can do or even because of that brilliant mind of yours. You're better because of who you are as a person." Kat blushed and looked at her feet. "Of course," he grinned in mock lasciviousness, "looking like an Amazon goddess, being able to juggle pick-up trucks, and a genius doesn't hurt."

"Except I can't juggle." She wasn't sure if it was the sun coming out of a cloud or his laughter that suddenly made the world seem so bright. They had reached the market. It took them almost forty minutes to get the shopping done. The pace of things was just slower here than she was used to in Escondido. Nathan haggled for the best prices more out of courtesy than any real desire to pinch a penny and everyone wanted to hear about life in the big city or America. There were long greetings and longer goodbyes, discussions of family and health and weather. It seemed to Kat that about eighty percent of their time was spent chatting and only about twenty percent was spent shopping. Eventually they had four big bags of food between them.

Nathan gestured towards a small stand near the market that sold some sort of fried meat on a stick. "Let's grab a snack before we walk back."

"I don't know," Kat glanced anxiously at her watch. "We've been gone an awfully long time."

"It won't take long and they have snow cones. You look like you could use something cool." He was right. She was certain that she was drenched in sweat because of the heat and the humidity.

"Alright, but only if they have strawberry."

"Right this way, m'lady." They ordered two extra large snow cones and took seats at a little table under the shade. "Ooh!" Nathan knuckled his forehead. "Brain freeze!"

Kat laughed. "You should have seen that coming," she teased.

"Maybe I did," he smiled, "but I felt your smile was worth it."

"What's it like?" she asked. "How do you do it?"

He glanced around to make no one was near enough to eavesdrop. "How do I explain it. Imagine a big city like New York or LA. Time is like that city and you need to get from one side of town to the other. Every decision you make is an intersection in the road. Most people can't see very far ahead, maybe only a block or so. Now pretend you've got a GPS that can show you how to get from place to place but your GPS is different than normal. Instead of showing you one route to your destination, it shows you every possible route. Black lines crisscrossing back and forth across the map until it becomes hard to tell one path from another. As you move through the city some turns disappear because you've already gone past them but new ones appear too. You can see the nearby turns pretty clearly in the GPS but the farther out you look the harder it becomes to make sense of what you are seeing. Do you follow me so far?"

"Yeah, I get it."

"Okay, now in our imaginary city there are certain intersections that you have to go through no matter what path you take. So the only thing you can alter is what direction you enter the intersection from and what direction you take when you leave but, no matter what, you are going to go through that intersection. These predestined events are easy to see from a long way off because all the paths funnel into that single moment. It isn't always easy to see how one path gets to the event but you can see it coming from a long way off."

"What sorts of events are these?"

"Well, they tend to be major life events. Things that affect you in powerful ways or for a long time. You know, like when my brother died, or my mom left, my death, meeting you. You know big stuff."

"I don't think meeting-" Kat stopped short and stared at him with her mouth open in sudden shock. "Did you say your death?"

"Uhm." Nathan looked uncomfortable. "Yeah."

"You mean that you know how you are going to die?"

"Well, yeah."

"And you know when?"

"That's the final intersection, isn't it? The last major event that shapes our lives." Nathan read the growing horror in her amazing emerald eyes. "Look, I promise I won't die tonight. Okay?" He placed his hand on hers and felt an electric shock run up his spine. Her hand was so soft and warm. He left it there and she didn't make him move it. Nor did she move hers. He was in heaven.

"I can't imagine what that must be like. Sure, intellectually I understand that we all die sooner or later but knowing – really knowing – when and how you are going to die. That-that must be terrifying."

"Maybe at first." Nathan shrugged. "But once you get used to the idea. It can be pretty liberating too."

"Can you see other people's…" Kat wasn't sure how to ask her question or even if she wanted to know the answer.

"It is much harder for me to see other people's futures. Even the big events." Nathan tossed the paper wrapper for his snow cone in the trash. He missed because he was trying to do it with his off hand. "When Dave died I didn't see it coming until it was too late. When I think about it, I think maybe I only saw it at all because of its effect on me. I haven't seen anyone's death since. Not even when Eric ran into that car. I never saw it coming and I was right there when it happened." Kat was silent for almost a full minute. "Hey, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to bum you out."

Kat waved his concern away. "No, no. You didn't. I was just thinking about the things you said. It's a lot to take in." She took her hand back and Nathan did his best to hide his disappointment. "We'd probably better get going. Mister Lynch will start to worry." They walked home in silence, each lost in their own thoughts. Nathan felt miserable for upsetting Kat. His calm had almost completely deserted him and he seemed jittery, almost expectant. For her part, Kat didn't know what to say. She tried to imagine what it would be like and couldn't. The very idea was terrifying. As they approached the house, Kat suddenly leaned over and kissed him briefly on the cheek. "I think you are very brave," she whispered and then quickly disappeared into the house. Nathan couldn't move. His gift had shown him the kiss was coming but it was still amazing.

"Worth the wait," he touched his hand to his cheek and leaned his back against the door, "Well worth the wait."

Carol Ferris yawned and rubbed her tired eyes. It was almost four and she was exhausted from a long day. She irritably paused the video that was playing on her laptop. The screen showed the footage from the security cameras at the mall. It hadn't taken her long to find the cameras and the footage she was looking for. She had spent another three hours reviewing the footage. Over and over again, she had watched the black SUV crash over the curb and her agents, Watts and Grissom, pile out. Watts had started firing immediately while Dan had hesitated. Fairchild waited for them to clear the crash and then threw a pickup truck into the SUV. Watts and Grissom dived out of the way and by the time they got back to their feet the Gens were gone. Even after watching the footage dozens of times from two different angles she couldn't decide if Dan had frozen, unlikely but possible, or if he had chosen not to fire on Fairchild. What she was certain of was that Fairchild had waited until both men had cleared the vehicle before she hit it with the truck. She knew the Gens had no compunctions about killing. That left only sinister reasons for Fairchild to wait for them to get clear.

Still she couldn't convince herself that Dan Grissom was a traitor. There had to be something else. Something she was missing that would explain away her doubts. There was no real evidence here anyway, just suspicions. She resigned herself to wait and watch. Dan was a good soldier, professional and dedicated. She wasn't going to share her concerns with anyone else and risk a witch hunt against an innocent man. She also wasn't going to just ignore her suspicions either. She resolved to watch him closely and see what developed. If he proved her suspicions wrong then no harm – no foul – but if he was dirty then she would be there to pounce on him. In the meantime, she needed sleep. She slid out of the hotel bathrobe she had found in the closet and dumped her cold coffee into the sink. She prowled naked through the suite checking to ensure that all of the doors and windows were secure and that her concealed weapons were loaded and ready. A girl couldn't be too careful, especially in her line of work.

They were gathered in a small hangar near the airport's western edge. Along one wall several posts had been put up with water balloons nailed to them. The balloons were white with black target dots painted on them. About twenty paces away a firing line had been laid out with silver duct tape. Dan's group lined up in front of a technician in gray fatigues and thick glasses. Off to the side another technician was placing the new space rifles into racks. When the tech-weenie asked for somebody to go first Watts gave Dan a hard shove in the back and the weenie commended him on volunteering. Dan hefted the maser rifle experimentally. He had been warned that it was heavier than expected. The balance was different from a normal rifle as well. It seemed heaviest in the stock, much more so then a normal weapon might be. The tech had explained this was because of the battery pack that powered the weapon. He aimed down range and lined up the green dot of the laser with the center of the target. After a moment's careful trigger squeeze there was a surprisingly loud pop and the water balloon he had been aiming at exploded in a shower of steam and water droplets. "Holy shit!" he swore.

The tech-weenie just laughed. "It's okay," he said as he took the rifle from Dan and held it up for everyone to see. "This selector switch right here is used to adjust the power of the microwave pulse. As you can see it is has nine levels with only the odd levels labeled. Currently, this rifle is set to the seventh power level. That is sufficient to severely injure a human being or to kill an offending water balloon." The tech changed the strength down to the unmarked second setting. "The second setting is sufficient to incapacitate somebody without doing them serious long term injury. You are not authorized to use a setting greater than three for this mission." He handed the rifle back to Dan and gestured to another water balloon target. Dan dutifully took aim and fired. This time the popping noise was much softer and the balloon seemed to wobble and expand slightly but was otherwise unharmed. "That popping sound you are hearing is the water molecules in the air bursting. The more power you add the greater the dispersion of energy. That means more molecules are affected and the noise is louder. Keep that in mind if you are trying to be stealthy. Low power equals quiet. The maser rifle is a line of sight weapon with a real world range of about one hundred meters and an optimal range of two hundred and fifty. There is no projectile to be affected by wind or gravity. The pulse is affected by atmospheric precipitation and debris. So if it is raining or there is a lot of dust, sand, or heavy smoke in the area you can expect to lose twenty to thirty percent of your range. This is a purely semi-automatic weapon. One trigger pull means one pulse and there is no burst or continuous fire option. This is a safety measure. Even at the lowest setting if you hold the beam on a target long enough you will kill it. The energy dissipates rapidly but the sensation remains so don't be afraid to put two or three shots onto a target as long as you remember to stay under the third power setting."

The tech once again took the weapon back from Dan and held it up. "The weapon is activated by this button here. It is also effectively your safety. Red light on and the weapon is ready to fire. Red light off and the weapon is shut off. You can expect approximately fifty shots at the second power setting. Higher charges use more energy. The draw rate is not progressive. At the third level you drop down to about thirty charges. At the highest setting you only have a single shot but, of course, you will not be using any charge higher than three for this mission. Let me say that again for the slow kids. Use of any power setting greater than three is not authorized. Any violation of this commandment and you can explain to the Deputy Director himself why you chose to break the rules."

He handed the rifle to another tech who replaced it with a fresh rifle from the charging stand. "Moving on. This green bar on the side gives you a graphic estimation of the remaining charge. The lower the green bar the fewer shots you have remaining. The maser is not armor piercing in the traditional sense but standard military and civilian ballistic protections will not affect the pulse. In fact, for your purposes you will find the maser is most effective when fired at the center of mass of the target. This gives you the greatest chance to disable your target with a single shot. Expect your target to remain incapacitated for five to ten minutes depending on their personal stamina at strength two. At the lowest power setting most people will be made uncomfortable enough to move but will not be incapacitated.

Now if you will all pair up and make sure that your selector switches are set to the lowest power setting. That is the setting indicated by the number one on the selector switch. We will give everyone an opportunity to fire and recharge the rifle. Do not power up your weapon or fire until you have been told to do so by a technician."

Doctor Ivery watched the last group of men exit the hangar they had been using for the weapons demonstrations. His senior assistant on this trip, Loren Bedford, was settling each of the weapons back into their racks. He turned to Carol Ferris who was standing next to him. She was watching the men leave with narrowed eyes. "Is everything okay?" he asked her.

"Yes," she said. "I am just a little worried about my guys with these new rifles. They're keyed up. Angry. I am afraid someone will bump the selector switch up to a four or a five just to be sure. I want Fairchild bagged but not killed."

Ivery nodded. "My people made it clear that they were not go any higher than the third power setting," he said. "I am sure your people got the hint."

"Doctor," Ferris gave him a cold look, "no offense but when was the last time you heard of a field grunt listening to what a techie had to say?"

"Even at level five," Doctor Ivery said cautiously, "As long as the target is not hit by multiple beams in the same location the damage should be recoverable." Ferris didn't seem to be very reassured. Of course, it wouldn't be his ass in a sling if one of Ferris's troops got carried away and inadvertently fried one of the targets. He was interrupted when an agent hurried up to Ferris.

"Ma'am, we just intercepted a report by a local LEO in Ocara."

Ferris took the report the report from the man and scanned through it. "Have the Brazilian authorities seen this?"

"No ma'am. We intercepted it before it reached them."

"Good. Gather the teams."

"C'mon Grunge!" Roxy shouted gleefully. "Kick his ass!"

Nathan and Grunge circled each other warily. The morning had brought a slight breeze with it that finally broke up the rain clouds and allowed the sun to shine down and dry things out in the back yard. In celebration, Mister Lynch had organized a hand-to-hand tournament. It had come down to Grunge and Nathan in a semi-final match to see who would get the honor of facing Lynch for the championship. Grunge moved in with a series of high punches that set up a low sweep. Nathan slid away from each punch like water and stepped over the sweep with ease. He let Grunge chase him around the yard. Grunge tried a feint to the left and shot a roundhouse kick to the right. Nathan ignored the feint completely and turned into the kick, catching it. He went for a sweep but Grunge twisted like a salmon climbing a waterfall and rolled to his feet outside of Nathan's reach.

Nathan waited for Grunge to attack again but Grunge chose not to. "Come and get me." He taunted.

"Very smart." Jack Lynch murmured.

Kat looked over. "What do you mean?"

"Eddie is the better fighter," he explained to her, "but Nathan's gen abilities give him a significant advantage on the defense. Nathan understands this so he has studied Aikido extensively and Aikido's strength is turning an attack against itself. By attacking Eddie plays to Nathan's strengths but if he forces Nathan to go on the offensive he mitigates that advantage and can bring his greater experience and broader training to bear." Sure enough, Nathan seemed less comfortable attacking Grunge. He threw a couple of low punches that even Kat recognized as slow. She realized that Nathan was trying to lure Grunge into counter attacking but Grunge wasn't fooled. He dodged the punches and continued circling waiting for Nathan to fully commit to an attack.

The sun beat down as they maneuvered for an advantage. Finally, Grunge got the upper hand. He had managed to circle so that he had his back to the house and was facing into the morning sun. Ordinarily this would have been a bad position to be in but his height, or lack thereof, worked to his advantage. A plastic and metal wind chime hanging from the veranda's roof reflected the bright sunlight over his head and right into Nathan's face while Nathan's own body shaded the much shorter Grunge from the blinding direct sunlight. He lunged forward and threw his weight into a series of punches to Nathan's face. To those watching Nathan seemed to fold around the attack. It all happened so fast Kat couldn't follow all the movements. She saw Nathan absorb the first punch on his chin and trap Grunge's wrist with his right hand on the follow-up punch but nothing after that. They ended up on the ground with Grunge laying on his back and his right wrist trapped in Nathan's hands. Nathan's legs were wrapped around the arm and putting painful pressure on Grunge's elbow and shoulder. Kat knew it would be a simple matter for him to break Grunge's arm and there was nothing her friend could do to stop him. Grunge knew it too. He quickly tapped out and Nathan promptly released him. The two young men sat up grinning and breathing heavily.

"I thought I had you with that reflection trick, bro. How'd you see that punch?" grunge asked.

Nathan shook his head. "I didn't. Your trick blinded me but good. I knew you were going to throw those punches so I just blocked blindly. I wasn't fast enough to get the first punch before you caught me." He rubbed his jaw. "Man, you hit like a mule. It was a good thing I caught the second one or it would have been lights out."

"That's an important lesson," Lynch said as he helped them to their feet, "knowing what's coming won't help you if you aren't in a position to stop it. Eddie, to beat an opponent like that you need to box them in. Rush their responses and overwhelm them with speed and power. Nathan, you took a risk to trap Eddie's arm. This time it paid off but if he had been as strong as Kat that first punch would have taken your head off. Literally. Forget what you've seen in the movies and those MMA tournaments you've watched. In a real life or death fight, nine out of ten times the guy who hits first hits last." Mister Lynch handed Nathan a towel. "Take ten to catch your breath and we'll see if you can take down the champ."

Grunge held out his hand. "Good luck, bro. You're gonna need it."

Nathan shook his hand warmly. "Yeah, you're right." He took a seat between Kat and Sarah and wiped the sweat from his face. Kat offered to share her lemonade and he gratefully took a long swig. Kat noticed Mister Lynch speaking quietly to Roxy while Bobby was pouring fresh glasses for Sarah and Grunge. With his ten minutes up Nathan got to his feet and faced off against Jack Lynch – the man, the myth, the legend. Kat couldn't help but compare the two men. Jack Lynch was dressed in his usual monotone black, black tee shirt, black slacks, and black loafers. Nathan was bare-foot and bare-chested, wearing only a pair of loose white track pants with a blue stripe down the legs. He had been wearing a blue tee shirt with a picture of Mickey Mouse as a zombie on it but he had taken it off immediately before his bout with her. He claimed he was getting too warm. Kat had been so distracted that their match had lasted all of nine seconds and ended with her in the most enjoyable headlock she had ever experienced.

Nathan moved first but his attacks were sweeping leg and arm strikes that didn't do much. Nathan was more muscular and appeared to be faster than Jack Lynch but Lynch was taller with a longer reach. All he needed to do was intercept Nathan's strikes with short, fast jabs to disrupt his line of attack and then circle to the right or left. Lynch responded with a complicated attack sequence of his own but Nathan's ability to see what was coming before it arrived kept him out of harm's way and they remained stalemated. They were half way through their second circle and Nathan's back was to the porch when Roxy suddenly yelled, "Oh my gawd, Kat! Put your top back on!" Instinctively Kat clutched her arms to her chest even though she hadn't done anything even remotely like taking her shirt off. That didn't stop Bobbie, Grunge, Sarah, and, most importantly, Nathan from jerking to look in her direction. Mister Lynch's first strike was an open palm uppercut to the side of Nathan's jaw. He immediately followed that with an elbow up and under the ribs. Taking hold of Nathan's arm he stepped in and tossed the younger man over his hip. Nathan hit the ground hard only to have Lynch use the arm he still held to yank Nathan over onto his stomach. Lynch pressed his foot into the back of Nathan's shoulder joint and held the arm at full extension up in the air. Mister Lynch twisted the arm farther then it wanted to go and Nathan quickly tapped out.

Nathan sat up rubbing his shoulder. "Damn it," he said, "I am such a dummy. I saw it coming and still fell for it."

Kat jumped up. "That's- That's cheating!" she said.

"No." Jack Lynch said seriously. "When you are fighting for your life there is no such thing as cheating. There is only living or dying. The mental battlefield is just as important as the physical one. Remember that. You've got to control yourself and stay focused. If you let your opponent distract you they will take you down."

"It's okay, Kat," Nathan said. "He's right. I let myself get distracted and I got beat because of it."

Kat still didn't think it was right but she let it go when Mister Lynch's pocket started buzzing. Everyone listened eagerly as he answered the phone. "Yes," he said. "No, everything is fine here. Yes. Okay, we'll see you then. Be careful." He put the phone away and looked around. "What?" he asked them.

Everyone groaned and Roxy snapped, "Oh c'mon! You know what!"

Jack Lynch smiled with smug satisfaction. "Well, as the still reigning champion I'm going to go celebrate my greatness with a cola." He walked past them and into the house. Roxy was practically quivering with frustrated curiosity but she refused to be baited into another outburst. Everyone took a seat at the kitchen table. Lynch stretched the silence as long as he dared before he finally relented. "Annie is in California. She'll pick up the plane tomorrow afternoon and be here the day after."

"Two more days and it's back to civilization!" Roxy cheered. "The first thing I am going to do is turn the air conditioning up so high I'll have to wear a sweater!"

"I'm going swimming in the pool!" Grunge promised.

"Well," Nathan said quietly, "I guess you'd better get some packing done." He got up from the table and left the room.

"Uhm," Roxy looked uncomfortable. "What did I say?"

"You mean besides implying that he is a lousy host because he doesn't have air conditioning and the country he lives in is uncivilized?" Kat snapped.

Roxy's eyes got as big as saucers. "I didn't mean-" she started to say but Lynch cut her off.

"He knows that Roxy," he said. "I don't think that's it. He is right, though. You guys give him some space and go get some packing done. I'll go talk to him." Kat and the others looked at each other in confused nervousness as he left the table.

Carol Ferris had the whole team gathered in a half circle in front of her. The size of her force had grown considerably since the operation had started. She now had four teams of Keepers, five teams of Black Razors, plus expanded Intel and Forensics teams. That didn't count the crews and support staff for her plane and assault helicopters. Altogether, she had almost eighty people and half of them were shooters. The Lynch mob wasn't going to get away this time.

Carol's features were slightly obscured by the map projection she stood in front of. A river wound its way down her cheek. She pointed to a point on the topographical map. This is the village of Ocara. It is forty-eight miles south of Fortaleza and has a population of roughly sixty-eight hundred people. Mostly in outlying farms surrounding the town. ELINT diverted a local LEO report identifying two of our targets. One we believe is Nathan Lyons and the other can only be Caitlyn Fairchild. I just can't imagine there are that many – " here she glanced at the computer pad she held in her hand and read directly from the report, "Let's see, 'seven foot tall valkyries with red hair' running around rural Brazil. How does a rural cop in Brazil even know a word like valkyrie?" Everyone gathered for the briefing laughed. "They were observed shopping in the local markets and the report shows they only purchased food and similar provisions. They may be gearing up for an overland trip or they may be resupplying and intend to hunker down and wait us out. Either way, they are about to be disappointed. Once we had a probable location our data crunchers in Intelligence managed to find an anomaly that we were able to follow-up on." The projection changed to an overhead shot of a stretch of forest just east of town. Dan could see the corner of a house just peaking out from a break in the trees. According to bank records this house belongs to a "Geoff LaMontagne, French National who retired to Brazil in nineteen eighty. We also found the Geoff has an account in the Grand Caymans that he uses to play online poker to the tune of about seventeen grand a year in US dollars. Financial records show that Geoff immediately transfers the money to a business checking account with the Central Bank of Brazil. We hacked the bank's ATM footage for the Fortaleza area over the last six weeks and found that our Parisian retiree looks just like Nathan Lyons." Carol moved out of the light and the projection changed again. This time it was a close-up of a narrow stretch of yard at the back of the house. Dan felt physically ill. There they all were – Kat, Lynch, Roxy, the whole gang – gathered together and standing around the back yard. It looked like Roxy and the blonde kid, Bobby, were fighting while the others just stood around watching. "Recent satellite surveillance confirms that all targets are currently present at the house. Ladies and Gentlemen, we have them." Carol noted that Dan Grissom didn't join in the sudden outbreak of grim cheers that went up from the operators gathered around her.

"What's the assault plan?" one of the Black Razors asked.

"We aren't taking any chances this time. Keeper teams will infiltrate the house and secure the targets. We're going with a soft approach and a hard entry. I want Black Razor teams here, here, and here to secure the perimeter. The remaining Black Razors will mount out in the helicopters as a reaction force. Every keeper team will have two of the new Maser rifles as well as the Razor teams on the ground. The reaction force will have one Maser per team. Mike Connelly will lead Keeper Team Alpha on the west side. You guys will be coming up the drive so be extra careful about looking for mines or other traps. You should have visual cover almost all the way to the house thanks to the trees. Aaron, you and Keeper Bravo will come in from the north. There is some real heavy brush on that side so take your time and plan your movements accordingly. Keeper Charlie will come in on the South side. There are no entries on that side of the house but there is this small outbuilding here that I want you to check out. Once you've cleared that I want you to enter through the garage area in support of Alpha."

Dan didn't know if he wanted to cheer or curse his luck. He was with Keeper Delta and with each of the other teams coming in from the other directions that left him and his team to come in from the east side of the house – the back of the building with the veranda. The veranda had Japanese style sliding walls that ran almost the whole length of the house. This was the largest entry point and a natural assault point. It would allow the whole team to spread out and enter _en masse_.

"Keeper Delta," Carol continued. "Looks like you guys drew the short straw. I will be leading your team personally. We will be going in on the East side. GPR shows every other room in the house feeds to this back living room area. We can expect that this will be where all the action is. We're going to dump enough EMP, Flash-bangs, and CS Gas in this room to stop a battalion. I want everybody in full combat armor. Split your magazines evenly between lethal and non-lethal but, for God's sake, don't mix them up. We want to catch these sons of bitches if we can. Black Razor One, you will be covering the perimeter from here to here." The briefing continued on for some time but Dan barely heard any of it. There were so many things wrong his mind couldn't decide which to focus on. With everyone in full armor there would be no way for Kat and the others to know which one was him and with Ferris looking over his shoulder it would be almost impossible to tell them. Why was Ferris joining the team in the first place? Did she suspect something? Did she suspect him? He felt like he was navigating a minefield wearing a blindfold on a moonless night. Jumping at shadows was just as likely to get him killed. About the only thing he had going for him was the omnipresent heat disguised the real reason that he broke out in a cold sweat.

After dinner, Jack found Nathan in the little corner of the garage that he used for his painting. The young man was standing in front of a largely blank canvas holding a paint palette and a brush. There were two grey blotches of paint in opposite corners of the canvas. The blotches seemed to be expanding across the edges of the canvas leaving a tunnel of white in the middle, but Jack could see no discernable picture developing. Jack took a seat on the corner of a handy table. "You're not coming with us are you?" he asked.

Nathan looked at him morosely. "No, I'm not."

Jack sighed loudly. "You would if you could?"

"Yeah. "

"But you can't."

"Yeah." Nathan set the paint down and wiped his hands with a paint-stained towel. He leaned against the table and sighed.

"Did you want me to say anything?" Jack asked.

"To Kat?" Nathan considered a moment. "No. It wouldn't change anything. What will be – will be and neither man nor Gen can change that."

"How does it happen?"

"I can't tell you that," Nathan said. "If I did you'd only try to change it and then someone else will get hurt, probably killed.

"So I can change it."

"Not really. You can change how it happens but it will happen."

"I don't believe in pre-destiny." Jack said quietly.

"Neither would I if I had a choice." Nathan sighed and headed for the door. "I know you don't like it but you've got to trust me. This is the best possible option."

Jack waited until he was sure Nathan was gone then he reached for his phone. It didn't have time for a full ring before she answered. "We have a situation," He said, "I need you here as soon as possible."

Dan was beginning to feel prescient. Either that or he was the unluckiest bastard on God's green Earth. The night was pitch black. The morning breeze had died in the late afternoon and heavy clouds had settled back into their accustomed places totally obscuring the moon, which was only a quarter full anyway. All he needed now was a minefield and the blindfold. The rest of Keeper Delta was spread out in a line on either side of him. Ferris had assigned the Masers to him and Watts and placed them on either side of her at the center of their line. They were creeping slowly through the underbrush. It wasn't the darkness that slowed them down. With the infrared enhancements built into their armor's visor they could see in the infrared spectrum. IR LEDs built into the helmet's brim and his armor's shoulders allowed him to see through the darkness easily enough. The problem was the power armor they were wearing. The armor's power systems negated its own weight so one hundred and twenty five pounds of high-density ceramic felt like it weighed nothing at all. Even though he couldn't feel the weight it was still there and moving that much mass quietly through a forest was challenging at best. Add the stiffness of the armor and the almost total lack of a sense of touch that came with being encased from head to toe to the armor's mass and Dan would swear that he had hear pregnant camels that made less noise.

At least when he was relying on the IR mode to see it limited him to black and white vision. That way he didn't have to see the shiny crimson paint jobs on the armor. Who ever heard of field armor painted bright red? Haven't these people ever heard of camouflage? It was one of the oddly surreal elements of working for IO. On the one hand they could be incredibly professional and sophisticated. Then they go and do something so incredibly stupid that you had to wonder if the people in charge believed they were living in a comic book or something. He pushed those thoughts aside even as he pushed aside the broad leaf of some sort of ground level palm.

Was it still a palm tree if it only grew a few feet off the ground? Was it a palm bush? Dan sighed. It was always like this right before. Some of the guys he served with in Afghanistan would get into this sort of Zen calm state right before combat. They would describe a sensation where their thoughts would slow down and they would just react without thinking. For Dan it was exactly the opposite. The world slowed down because his brain sped up. With his brain going so fast he developed a sudden case of ADHD and thoughts would flit in and out of his consciousness like birds through an open window.

They stopped just before the demarcation line where jungle became backyard grass. Hidden by the vegetation and the darkness of the night, they became silent, deadly shadows. He wasn't plugged into the command-net like Ferris so he didn't have the handy little pop-up on his HUD that told him where everybody was but he could still sense what was happening around him. They were waiting for everyone to get into position. Over the comm-net he heard a whispered voice report, "Charlie-six has cleared target Bravo. All clear, no tangoes. Keeper Charlie moving to the garage." Target Bravo was the small run-down outbuilding on the edge of the property, little more than a shack. Probably just a tool shed. His grandfather used to have a tool shed. Dan remembered that it had lots of spiders.

"Alpha-Actual, we are at the front door, no sign of alarms. Can we get a go/no-go from mission commander?" Alpha actual would be Mike Connelly, former Green Beret and leader of the Keeper Alpha team. As solid a platoon leader as Dan could ever imagine. He glanced over at Ferris even though he knew he wouldn't be able to read anything through the featureless visor of her helmet.

"Hold one." Ferris replied on the net.

"Bravo-Actual, we are ready for go/no-go." Another voice whispered over the net. Dan wondered why they were whispering. The armor was fully sealed and they had double-checked that everyone's external speakers were shut off. Nobody more than a meter away would hear him even if he shouted – old habits must die hard.

"Charlie-Actual to Mission Commander. Have infiltrated garage. There is no entrance to target Alpha. Where do you want us?"

Nathan checked his watch. It was almost time. He was sitting on the cold floor of the kitchen where he would be concealed from the IO agents in the back yard. He thought he heard a soft creek from the front porch and what might have been the side door to the garage open but he couldn't be sure. It didn't really matter. Just because he couldn't see them or hear them didn't mean they weren't there. He stayed low and crawled quickly from the kitchen to the hall where the bedrooms were. He opened the first one he came to. Inside Grunge and Bobby were snoring contentedly. He grinned when he saw Grunge curled up and clutching the pillow to his chest like a teddy bear. As he entered the room, Bobby's eyes popped open and he sat up. "What's going on?"

Nathan put his finger to his lips. "Shh. It's time to go. They're here."

"IO?"

"Yes. Wake Grunge and then go get your dad. I'll get the girls." Nathan slipped back into the hall before Bobby could argue. He heard a muffled thump from the room and Grunge complaining. He padded to the last door down and tapped lightly at the door. He waited a moment and then tapped again. Down the hall, Bobby and Grunge emerged into the hall. Grunge was still rubbing the sleep from his eyes. The door cracked open and a suspicious purple eye peaked out.

"What?"

Nathan pushed the door open and stepped boldly into the room. Roxy was dressed in an over-sized tee shirt, that only barely covered her ass, for a nightshirt. Sarah, who obviously chose to sleep naked, was sitting up in bed clutching a sheet to her chest. Kat was standing next to her bed wearing a tiny lace thong and a sports bra. She was caught like a deer in headlights with one foot in the leg of a pair of green sweat pants. He decided that it really was the little joys that made a life worth living. "IO is here," he said, "It is time to leave." He backed quickly out of the room and shut the door before Sarah could vaporize him with a lightning bolt.

Grunge looked at him strangely from the other end of the hall. "Dude, Ivana's Gestapo are coming and you're grinning like a maniac. What's wrong with you?"

Nathan just shook his head and quickly joined Bobby and Mister Lynch at the far end of the hall. "Grunge, there are moments in life when you realize that no matter how shitty things seem to be going true beauty is closer than you think."

"What the hell? Don't go all Yoda on me, man." Grunge complained. "What are you talking about?" he asked but Nathan just ignored him. Grunge turned back when he heard the girls' door open behind him. "Whoa!" he yelped and jumped back from the three angry women who emerged into the hall. _This must be what valkyries look like_, he thought, _super hot and super deadly._ Kat was wearing a pair of green sweat pants and a form fitting sports bra. She was flushed and her body glowed with a light sheen of perspiration like she had just been about to get in the shower after a workout. Sarah was dressed in a throw-on white sundress that plunged low in the front and back. She wore matching sandals with straps that wrapped her ankles. She would've looked right at home on some fancy European dance floor. Roxy was the only one who looked like she had been dressed for bed. She wore an oversized tee shirt and a pair of tight purple spandex shorts. The shirt had a large Eeyore on the front and clung tightly to her figure from the moisture in the air. It looked like Eeyore was copping a feel. Grunge had never been more jealous of a purple donkey.

"What's going on?" Kat demanded angrily.

"Keep your voices down," Mister Lynch growled from the end of the hall.

"What the hell is that?" Jorge muttered and ran fat sausage fingers through his thinning hair. Belinda hated pulling late night shifts with Jorge. He wasn't a bad guy but he stank of stale beer and too much fried food. Nevertheless, she walked over and glanced at his radar screen.

"It's a bird," she commented and started to turn away satisfied that her job was done.

"No," he disagreed, "it's not."

Belinda Cruz turned back. Maybe it was the late hour, or maybe it was the years spent clawing her way up the ladder in a male dominated field, or maybe it was the simmering resentment of growing up in an unashamedly sexist society but she decided that she was the Shift Supervisor and she wasn't going to take any crap from some fat-assed pig pretending to be an air traffic controller. "Look at the size of the return," she snapped. "That's a bird."

"Look at the speed," he replied mildly. "Birds don't do mach two."

"What the hell is that?" she muttered.


	6. Chapter 6

"This way," Nathan whispered. "Keep low, they can see us from the backyard." He led the way quickly down the hall and through the kitchen to the entry hall and opened the door to the half bath at that end of the house. When everyone was gathered around he said, "They have us surrounded but the garage will be empty." He patted the wall. "This wall separates the main house from the garage. It isn't load bearing so Kat can just smash right through it and we can go out through the garage when they hit the house. With the noise and the confusion we will have a couple of seconds head start."

"They'll have a containment ring," Mister Lynch said grimly. "A secondary set of operators outside the assault teams to catch anybody trying to escape. There should be a response force as well. Probably in helicopters because of the terrain."

"I didn't say it would be easy," Nathan grinned. "We'll have to move quickly and be ready to fight. I don't know about helicopters but we will run into a bunch of IO's goons when we get to the road. Be ready to fight. It is almost time. It will be a little crowded but we need to squeeze in and close the door."

"Why?" Sarah asked. The suspicious look in her eye clearly showed she was thinking of his recent entrance into their bedroom.

"Flash bangs." Jack Lynch said.

"And gas," Nathan added. "Also whatever it was they used in the mall. That stuff that knocks people out."

"Does everyone have your charms?" Kat asked. Bobby, Sarah, and Roxy were wearing theirs around their necks like she did. Grunge had his on his wrist. Mister Lynch just nodded but didn't indicate where his was. Nathan just looked blank. "Wait, what about Nathan? He doesn't have one."

Nathan just shrugged and looked at Grunge. "They have a limited range. Somebody will need to carry me out of the range and I'll be fine." Grunge nodded and everybody crowded in. "Just wait for the bang. It will be any moment now."

"Charlie, follow Alpha in the front door," Ferris replied over the radio. "Signal when you are in position. All units we go when Charlie signals. I repeat we have go order once Charlie is in place." Dan checked the Maser rifle's setting for the fourth time in the last two minutes. It had not magically changed from the second setting. Within moments Charlie radioed they were in position. There were four seconds that felt like four months and then Ferris said, "Do it." Dan heard the shoonk sounds of grenade launchers all along his line as Keeper Team Delta surged to their feet and sprinted toward the house. It was less than a hundred feet and they crossed the distance in seconds. As they reached the veranda the grenadiers dropped the grenade launchers they had been using. They were ungainly things with a bulky circular drums that held eight grenades. Ferris had launched four of hers. The others had only managed to get two grenades off. His armor's visor system was set for UV display and ultraviolet spotlights were mounted on his helmet and both shoulders. The flash bang grenades erupted with bright flashes over a million-candle power but almost none of it was in the ultraviolet spectrum and his fully sealed hardsuit protected him from the concussion that blew out the doors and windows. Normally a flash bang wouldn't do so much damage but like every other piece of equipment IO used, their flash bangs had been upgraded to deal with Gen level threats. They crashed through the remaining doors like a high school football teaming crashing through a homecoming banner. A vague light blue miasma hovered about the room. IO used a specially formulated tear gas that was virtually but not totally UV transparent. It gave the room an icy, surreal quality. Alpha had already crashed through the front door and was sweeping through the house, clearing rooms as they went.

Shouts of "Clear!" echoed through Dan's helmet speakers followed almost immediately by, "I got a hole! There's a hole in the bathroom!"

Even though she was expecting it, the bang of the grenades still startled Roxy badly. She hoped no one had heard her muffled squeak of fear. Ahead of her Cat surged forward and smashed through the wall that separated the house from the garage. Mister Lynch followed right behind her. Bobby preceded Sarah out and reached a hand back through the obscuring cloud of plaster dust to help her through. They both help her and Grunge push-pull a convulsing Nathan through the opening. His eyes were rolling wildly in his head and he was making gagging noises that were so distracting Roxy accidentally banged his head against the wall the first time they tried to shove him through the narrow opening.

Once they were all on the other side she helped Grunge heft Nathan onto his shoulders in a classic fireman's carry and then Mister Lynch nodded at Cat, who was kneeling with one hand on the garage door handle. She stood and the garage door peeled up with a rattling ripping sound and they all sprinted down the driveway. She glanced behind her and nearly screamed in frustration. It had only taken them a few seconds to get out but already she could see Keepers in their menacing red armor emerging from the hole in the wall. More were boiling out the front door and she could see two of them just rounding the far corner of the house. She had a sudden vision of gigantic red ants boiling out a kicked over anthill – giant, evil red ants. She turned and ran. Up ahead of her she could hear Mister Lynch yelling instructions. "Fan out! Cat, head for the main road. Bobby and Sarah, take opposite flanks." To Roxy, he sounded amazingly calm, like he was ordering pizza in a crowded restaurant. They were all running flat out into the darkness. Just ahead of her Nathan was starting to stir. He looked up and golden eyes met purple. He gave her a weak smile and a thumb's up sign. Grunge must have felt him moving about because they paused just long enough for Grunge to set him on his feet.

"You good, bro?" Grunge put a steadying hand on Nathan's shoulder.

"Yeah, I'm alright now," Nathan said. "Thanks, man. I owe you."

"Look, just stay away from my Roxy and we'll be good." Grunge gave him a light punch to the shoulder to show he was only kidding but Roxy didn't find it funny.

"You'd better move your ass, Percival Chang," she grumped as she ran past them, "Or _your_ Roxy is going to leave you to the Keepers."

"Oh crap," Grunge muttered as the two young men glanced back towards the house.

"Go ahead," Nathan said grimly. "I've got this."

"Tangoes have broken free," Carol called into her headset, "All Black Razors prepare for contact. Tangoes are currently fleeing on foot westbound toward the road. Razor One and Three move to flank, Razor Two report contact!" Carol grabbed Watts by his shoulder pad and shoved him towards the hole in the wall. "Keeper Delta is coming out the garage. Keeper Bravo secure the house. Alpha and Charlie go out the front!" She followed Watts through the hole, slamming chunks of sheetrock out of her way. On the other side she checked to make sure Grissom was still with her and then followed Watts out the entry. Ahead of them, the lead elements of Keeper Charlie were already pounding down the drive. Beyond them, she could see three of her targets trailing the rest. It looked like Chang, Lyons and the snotty girl with the purple hair. What was her name again? She keyed her visor's enhancement feature and the three teen-agers jumped into her vision. Chang and the girl started running but Lyons turned to face the Keepers of Charlie that were racing up. He raised his hands with his index finger pointed at the Keepers and his thumb sticking straight-up, like a child making a pretend gun. "Everybody take cover!" Carol yelled but it was too late. Multiple sonic booms shattered the night and four of Charlie's Keepers died. She watched their helmeted heads explode backward in a gory spray. Two of the bodies collapsed immediately, one was blown backward, and one actually managed three more steps before it finally tripped and fell. The legs of the last corpse were still struggling spastically in an eerie parody of life.

"Drop that sonofabitch!" Carol snarled as shouts of "Taking fire!" and "Man down!" echoed up and down her line of troops. Keepers scattered left and right as each man dove for cover then rose firing. She saw Lyons duck back as a hail of rubber "safety" rounds spattered around him. The stupid things were notoriously inaccurate. It was a catch-22. The rubber would deform from the heat and pressure of firing the weapon but making the rubber stiff enough to retain its shape when firing defeated the purpose of firing a non-lethal round in the first place. "Fuck this," she muttered, "All Keeper teams uncork the microwave rifles. Watts, Grissom! Put him down!"

Watts grinned behind his faceplate as he dropped to his knee for a more stable firing position. Although he would never admit it to anyone, he was a life-long fan of Star Trek and these maser rifles were too much like phasers for him to not get excited. He already had the rifle on his shoulder when Carol issued her orders. He had been sighting on Chang so he had to shift targets but he quickly did so and squeezed off a shot. Watts was a highly trained marksman with thousands of hours and probably hundreds of rounds fired to his credit. Some techniques had become instinctual. Techniques like adjusting for windage and bullet drop. As a result he pulled his shot to the right and before he could realize his mistake his target was already obscured behind the tree cover. "Shit," he swore under his breath.

"Watts, what happened?" Ferris slapped his shoulder pad as she went past.

"Pulled it, Skipper," he said. "I'll bag 'im next time."

"Make sure you do. Grissom?"

"I don't have a shot!" Dan said as he continued running up the drive. Carol let him pull ahead of her even though she could easily outdistance him. That way she could have a better idea of his sight picture. Sure enough the Gens had all disappeared behind a bend in the drive. Alpha and the remnants of Charlie were breaking right through the woods in the hopes of cutting them off but Carol knew the thick undergrowth would slow her Keepers down too much. She kept Delta at a run down the drive. It was a dangerous choice. You never knew when the pursued would set an ambush for the pursuers but she needed to keep the pressure on. She needed to keep the Gens looking back over their shoulders so they would run right into Razor Two's ambush.

Chief Warrant Officer Jake "Big Mac" Macdonald swept his black helicopter around to the right. He was heading to a wide spot in the road where he would drop two of Razor Five's four fire teams. Once the mudsloggers were on the ground he'd drive his bird up and sweep it along the south perimeter where he would be ready to provide supporting fire from the 30mm chain gun in his nose or the 7.62mm machine guns of his door gunners. He wasn't supposed to use his rockets for this engagement but they were armed and ready just in case. Warrant Officer Alan "Alice" Allerice, his co-pilot and navigator was monitoring the radar and sensors. "What the fuck?" he muttered. Mac had enough time to glance his way before Alice yanked the counter-measures toggle and screamed "Vampire! Vampire! Break left!"

Mac yanked hard on his control yokes and the helicopter skittered sideways. Behind him his crew chief, recognizing the code word for incoming missiles shouted, "Brace yourselves!" to the heavily armored Black Razors who had already begun preparing for their drop off. By sheer luck, Mac was looking in the right direction to see a sleek black plane streak past his helicopter at one and a half time the speed of sound. The pressure wave of the streaking aircraft tossed his helicopter about like a bulldog with a rag doll. He registered a cry and a black armored body falling from the open doors but after that, he was too occupied with keeping his bird from slamming into the deck. A helicopter relied upon the air passing over its rotor blades for lift. The sudden passage of a large fast moving object just forty feet off his bow had displaced a large amount of air. That air slammed into the side of his bird with the force of a freight train. One of his rotors bent and another was wobbling so bad it couldn't grab any air. Mac knew his helicopter was going down it was just a matter of how many of his crew and passengers were going to survive the crash.

With her long legs and a healthy dose of adrenaline pumping through her system, Kat was the first one to reach Razor Two's "killzone." She had just reached the edge of the road when the brush on the far side erupted in bright flashes of fire. She felt rounds ruffle her hair and deflect off her broad chest or her long thighs. She instinctively raised her arms to protect her face. No matter how many times it happened, she never really got used to people shooting at her. When she bothered to think about it that was probably a good thing but she didn't have time to think about it right now. Beside her, Mister Lynch's pistol boomed loudly. Suddenly a brilliant white light blinded her. Over the sound of the gunfire from the bushes she heard the thump, thump of a helicopter. _Crack! Pow!_ To her left a bolt of blue lightning arced into the sky and slammed into helicopter. There was a flash of fire and Kat watched the crippled helicopter slide drunkenly to the side before it smashed into the forest with a tremendous explosion. "Damn it! Sarah!" she cried, "You're killing them!" She looked back over her shoulder. Sarah Rainmaker looked the like the Devil's own bug-zapper. Her hair stood on end and flashes of blue lightning snapped and popped around her.

"_They are shooting at us, Kat,_"Even her voice had an electrical hum to it, "_Not all of us are bullet-proof, you know._"

There was a crashing boom overhead like a rocket going by and Kat could see another helicopter careening out of control. That left two more still in the sky and one of them drove nose-down at her. There was a sound like ripping fabric and Kat threw herself at her sister. "Arrggh!" she cried as jolts of electricity pounded her senses into mush even as 30mm shells pounded the pavement around her into rubble. It felt like a giant was picking her up and slamming her back down into the pavement over and over again. She tried push herself off of Sarah but Kat couldn't control her own twitching muscles.

Bobby heard gunfire coming from up ahead and behind them. When he saw the love of his life and one of his best friends in the world go down in a hail of fire his vision literally turned red. He knew his body was projecting enough heat to turn the pavement under his feet into gooey black tar but he didn't care. He threw his arms forward and a pillar of flame shot into the sky. If it had hit the helicopter it would have been destroyed instantly but Bobby aimed slightly to the right and the pilot jerked his craft away from the searing flames. Even as the helicopter jerked left, the cannon in its nose continued to fire tearing a line of chunks out of the pavement that ran inexorably towards his father. "No!" Bobby cried as he saw Jack Lynch spun around and thrown to the ground. Bobby watched his father roll away from the withering fire clutching at his arm.

Suddenly Bobby curled over in a ball as fire raced through his intestines. The heat and the pain were unbearable. He didn't understand what was going on. Normally, he didn't feel the flame he generated at all except for a sort of distant warmth in his fingertips. Now it felt like he was going to burn up from the inside.

"_Vampire! Vampire! Break left!_" Carol could hear the op going to shit all around her from the screaming voices in her helmet radio.

"_Baker! Oh Jesus! He fell, man! He fuckin' fell!_"

"_Mayday! Mayday! This Raptor 2 going down. Brace yourse-!"_

"_Open fire! Open fire!"_

"_Crap! Lynch just shot Fritz! Dirty, lousy, stinking traitor! He shot Fritz!_"

"_Medic!_"

"_Did you see that? The bitch just hit Raptor 3 with a fucking lightning bolt!"_

"The firestarter's down. Repeat, the firestarter is down. Switching targets." Carol recognized the last voice. It was Simmons, one of Black Razor Team One's maser gunners.

"All teams get your masers into play!" Carol yelled into her mike to cut across the chatter. "The masers work, damn it! Put them down with the masers!" She sprinted around the corner of the drive with Watts and Grissom just ahead of her.

"Bobby's down!" Grunge yelled in anguish. Grunge ran towards his friend. Roxy hesitated but Nathan waved her on.

"Help Bobby," he said. "I've got this." There were more sharp cracks from his fingertips as he harnessed his psychokinetic powers to fire bullets of psychic force at their enemies. Roxy could see beads of sweat breaking out on his forehead and he was breathing through his mouth. She squeezed his shoulder and turned to face the Keepers who were charging around the corner. She flung her hand at the female in the rear sending a pulse of low gravity at her. Her aim was true and the woman suddenly found herself weighing a tenth of her normal gravity. Roxy grinned as she tumbled end over end into the man in front of her and they both collapsed in a heap. "Nice job. Can you get the others in the tree line?"

Roxy turned toward the sounds of men crashing through the underbrush. She wove her hands back and forth like a juggler with one of those contact balls. In her mind, she was picturing a bubble of high gravity. It was as fragile and nebulous as a soap bubble. She wove it in and around the treetops. The high gravity pulled at the area around it like a vacuum cleaner. Twigs, leaves, and the assorted detritus of the forest began shooting up into the sky only to be flung out the far side of the gravity funnel. She increased the pressure and soon whole branches were being stripped into the sky. She was pleased to see rifles and the odd bit of gear soaring into the sky as well while the men they belonged to clung desperately to the trees around them. One lost his grip when the branch he clung to broke. The last Roxy saw of him was his body flying away into the dark. The pressure building in her head was tremendous and she couldn't maintain her hold on such a long area for long so she just let it go. Gravity in the little stretch of trees returned to normal almost instantly. Men who had been desperately trying to keep from falling into the sky suddenly found themselves falling to the ground. The sudden change was disorienting at best and nauseating for most. Nathan and Roxy turned and sprinted up the drive where Grunge was supporting Bobby across his broad shoulders.

"Kat! Are you okay?" Sarah pushed her sister off her with some effort. It always amazed her how heavy Kat was. She brushed bright red hair out of bright emerald eyes.

Kat shoved herself to her feet and pulled Sarah up with one hand. "That really hurt," she complained.

"You should thank god you're not dead!" Sarah scolded. "That much electricity would have killed an elephant. What were you thinking?"

"Duck!" Kat yelled and threw them both to the ground again. More cannon fire chewed up the ground around them.

"Damn it, Kat!" Sarah swore. "What-?" Sarah saw a black shadow swoop down out of the sky like a falcon diving on a pigeon. It was spitting tracer fire at the helicopter that was shooting at them. The line of crimson connected with the helicopter's tail rotor and the helicopter spun out of control. Before the door gunners of the trailing helicopter could target it, the shadow was already gone – back up into the clouds. A second later the sonic thunder of its passage rolled over them. The girls jumped to their feet and ran for cover. There was only one helicopter still in the sky but the volume of fire coming from down the road ahead of them was increasing.

To Carol, it felt like the world had dropped out from underneath her. It was a thrilling sensation when you were on roller coaster in some Coney Island amusement park but it was terrifying on a battlefield. She tumbled end over end bouncing off of Watts and collided into Dan Grissom from behind. Spaulding's gravity attack had robbed her of much of her weight but no one of her mass. They hit with the force of a car wreck and only their heavy armor protected them from serious injury. As it was they both lay stunned in a tangle of limbs.

Watts was there, kneeling over her and firing his side arm two handed. The Maser rifle was dangling from its strap around his shoulder. She hit him. "Don't kill them! Use the maser!" she shouted.

She couldn't see his face through the opaque face shield of his armor but she could hear the anger in his voice. "We got men down!" he snarled.

"And we were sent to take them alive!" Carol shoved Grissom away with her foot and got to her knees. She yanked the maser rifle away from Watts and hit him with it. "Get your head in the game, mister!"

"Shit!" Dan swore. "Carol, we've got problems." He held up the bent remains of his maser rifle. It must have gotten caught between their armored bodies when they hit the ground.

"Take this one," Carol said as she handed him the maser in her hand. "This idiot doesn't need his." The three of them got to their feet as Carol surveyed the battlefield. She had one bird left in the sky and it was in the middle of a drop-and-hop landing. The pilot skimmed his bird along the ground at a man's running pace for just long enough for the Black Razors in the back to jump out and then he shot back up into the sky. Even as the helicopter shot skyward a black jet came screaming down out of the clouds on an intercept course. The two craft passed within a handful of yards and the jet wash of the passing plane spun the helicopter into the trees like a child's top smashing into a house of blocks. "Shit."

Jack Lynch fired as he ran. Kat and Sarah were back up and running in his direction. Things had gotten too confused in the dark for him to pick his shots so he just fired to keep the bad guys from getting too close. Sarah saw where he was shooting and sent a half dozen lightning bolts in the same direction. Fires began to smolder in the wet undergrowth. The blue-tooth in his ear began to buzz. His left arm was useless from a near miss by a 30mm shell so he had to use his gun hand to thumb the thing on.

"That is the last of the helicopter's honey," she said. "You have two teams coming in on your flanks and another team ahead of you." Even in the midst of chaos and danger his wife's voice took his breath away. "I'll make a pass over the team to the west and set down in the road. I am afraid you'll need to hurry."

"What about behind us?" he asked.

"It looks like Roxy and Nathan have that under control but it looks like the house is on fire. I am starting my run now."

"Oh no! Bobby's hurt." Jack spun around at the sound of Sarah's cry. He could see Grunge was supporting his stricken son. Black Razors were charging towards them with guns raised. He wanted nothing more than to charge to the rescue but he had to be a commander before he could be a father.

"Kat! Go help Bobby and Grunge," he ordered. "Sarah, keep up the pressure on those guys in the front." Kat loped off like a gazelle, her long legs carrying her to his son's rescue much faster than he ever could. He moved to the side and fired at the Razors. He hoped to draw their fire away from the kids and he succeeded in pulling half of them towards him.

Grunge saw the helicopter skim the ground less than a hundred yards away from them. The rear doors were open and large figures in high-tech black armor started jumping out. Another figure in a black flight suit and bright yellow helmet swung an evil looking machine gun in their direction. He shoved Bobby out of the line a fire and dove for the ground. The tarmac seemed to open to receive him and he quickly disappeared beneath the road's surface like a frog disappearing into a dark stream.

Bobby hit hard on his shoulder and scrambled away from the rounds that zinged and snapped around him. It felt like he had fire ants in his chest. He couldn't breathe and his head throbbed in time to the pounding of his heart. He glanced up in time to see four troopers in black armor jogging over with their weapons trained on him. "I am so dead," he muttered.

"Don't move!" the troopers had voices that were mechanically augmented to rock concert levels. Every syllable felt like a bullet in his brain. "Hands on your head! Don't move! Don't you fucking move! Oh fuck!"

Grunge erupted from the ground at their feet. His body was the black-gray of the pavement and just as hard. For the poor troopers he was all fists and feet. His rock hard punches and kicks smashed faceplates and cracked armor along with the bones underneath. It was over in seconds but Bobby saw none of it. He was too busy cowering for his life in a fetal position as bullets spattered everywhere.

"C'mon, dude," Grunge said, "We gotta go!" Bobby felt rough hands drag him to his feet and then Kat was there lifting him up into her arms. She carried him like a baby as her and Grunge ran down the road. Bobby would have been mortified if he could have summoned the energy to do so.

All three of them hit the deck when gunfire erupted from their left. "Grunge take Bobby!" Kat shouted, "I'll cover you." Grunge made to grab Bobby before he grunted and fell to his knees. He felt at his back and his hand came away red with blood. "Grunge!"

"Oh damn," he whispered. Roxy and Nathan arrived at their side. Roxy immediately grabbed Grunge while Nathan turned his _finger guns_ on the Razors in the tree line. Between his fire and the fire from Mister Lynch, the volume of bullets snapping around them fell considerably.

"Grunge, baby, are you alright!" Roxy's soft cheek was mashed against his rock-like one. He pushed her back and attempted to stand. Pain shot through his lower back and hips. He grit his teeth so hard he could feel the enamel crunch but he forced himself to ignore the pain and stand.

"It hurts like hell," he told her. "Kat, you need to get Bobby. I'm not going to be able to carry him."

"I can't carry him and protect you guys at the same time. Nathan?"

"I'm a little busy keeping their heads down," he answered as he let fly with a couple of more psychic bullets. "Roxy can do it."

"No she can't-" Grunge started to protest but was cut off when she hit him. "AAh! Jesus, Roxy! That hurts!"

"Oh baby!" Roxy clutched his hand to her cheek. "Are you okay? I'm sorry!"

"Stop beating up our wounded, Roxy!" Kat reached down and tore up a chunk of pavement to use as a shield.

"I'm sorry! Stop it, Grunge. I said I've got him." Roxy placed a hand on Bobby's shoulder and hip and gently lifted. He moaned as gravity shifted and his stomach did flip-flops. "Just help me steer him!"

Grunge grabbed Bobby's wrist and started pulling him forwards. "Damn. Roxy-girl, you are awesome!"

"Not so fast," Roxy complained. "His mass doesn't change because I fiddled with gravity. We need to be able to stop him." They set off with Grunge and Roxy guiding a floating Bobby while Kat and Nathan covering them. They made it to Sarah and Mister Lynch under a hail of gunfire.

"Annie's coming in hot!" Mister Lynch shouted when they were all together. Once she sets Sarah and Roxy will get the wounded on board while the rest of us cover them. Then we fall back to the bird in order – Nathan, Kat, and then me."

"I should go last!" Kat shouted back.

"Don't argue with me, Caitlyn!"

Dan took the maser rifle and advanced down the road. He didn't dare think about how bad this was going. Carol and Watts were right behind him. They were the only ones advancing from the house side. The rest of the Keepers had been knocked flight by Roxy's gravity attack or killed outright by . Ahead, he could see that Cat and her friends were taking fire from the front and along one flank. Sarah Rainmaker was laying down a deadly barrage of lightning in the front while Nathan and Lynch were returning fire on the flank. Kat was using a large chunk of the road and her own body to shield them. Carol spread them out with Dan on the left side of the road and Watts on the right. She advanced boldly up the middle. "Hold fire until we close," she said. "Dan, target Fairchild first, then Lyons."

Dan began looking around for something, anything, that would get him out of this horrible mess. He wouldn't fire on Kat. He couldn't. But not firing would put his own life in jeopardy. "Shit."

"What's wrong, Dan?" Watts asked.

Before Dan could answer there was a horrible roaring sound from above and behind them. All three threw themselves flat to the ground as the black jet past them pouring a stream of cannon fire at the Black Razors to the front of the Gens. It braked hard, flaring its ailerons and rear up on its tail like a bucking horse. The wind of it passage battered the three Keepers on the ground and even the Gens were knocked down. The jet's thrusters screamed as it leveled into a hover just a few feet off the ground and extended a hydraulic ramp. Carol leapt up and started running. "Come on!" she shouted. "They are getting away." Dan and Watts got to their feet but didn't immediately advance. A storm of fire was erupting from the flanks and they didn't want to charge into a blue-on-blue shooting gallery.

From his position, Dan could see Sarah and Roxy were struggling to get Bobby and Grunge up the ramp into the jet. Kat, Lynch, and Lyons were covering them. For the first time in his life, Dan felt time slow down in combat. Sounds became distorted but he could see Carol looking back at him. She was yelling something at him while pointing at the Gens. He couldn't understand the words but he didn't need to. He knew what she wanted. He glanced over and Watts was squeezing off shot after aimed shot. Dan could see the plume of his muzzle flash expanding in slow motion like a mushroom of fire. _Great. Now what do I do?_ he thought to himself. _Shoot an innocent woman and betray our friendship or hold my fire and betray my employer and my country? Either way I am so fucked._ Ferris was still yelling. He raised the maser to his shoulder and sighted down the barrel. His breathing slowed, his shoulders relaxed, and he fell into an off-hand firing stance automatically. Something caught inside his armor. Whatever it was poked him in the chest. _What the hell is that?_ he wondered. He realized it was the note from the loft. The one Lyons had left for him. He didn't dare leave it in his bags where it could be discovered and he hadn't had an opportunity to properly dispose of it yet. The words came back to him in a flash: _PS: You have to take the shot. Your life depends on it. Don't worry she will be fine._ Dan hesitated an eternal second longer. In his sights he could see Kat and Lyons looking back at them. Kat was hefting the chunk of concrete she carried and threw it like a shot put. He watched the chunk of concrete and dirt fly through the air towards them. Carol and Watts both scrambled away but he remained where he was. It really was amazing. That chunk probably weighed six hundred pounds and she just tossed it seventy yards. It crashed down on the far side of the road and shattered into a million pieces. Chunks of it spattered off his armor but did no harm. Carol was still screaming at him. This time some of what she said got through.

"Shoot her!" she ordered.

_Fuck It. It's not going to hurt her anyway. _Dan's breathing stopped. He and he squeezed the trigger.

Kat was getting sick and tired of people shooting at her and her friends. Nathan and Mister Lynch were pouring fire into the trees along the side of the road. What fire was coming at them was unaimed and ineffectual. She had a moment of hope that was quickly crushed when a shot cracked off her cheek. She was unharmed except for a smudge from the lead and copper deflecting off her skin. She turned and saw three Keepers in their hateful red armor advancing up the road from the direction of the house. The one on the right, her left, was firing a pistol. He was the one who shot her. The one in the middle, a woman judging by her chest plate, was directing the one on the other side with the rifle. "Leave us alone!" Kat shouted and threw the chunk of road she had been using as a shield at them. She had hoped to hit the one with the rifle but her aim was off. Instead the concrete smashed into the road between the other two. _Go on, shoot me!_ she thought to the rifleman. _I dare you!_ And he did.

Afterwards, Kat couldn't articulate what had happened. She was staring at the Keeper in his scarlet armor when she caught movement out of the corner of her eye. It was Nathan. He was leaping in front of her, saving her! _No!_ She felt his hands on her shoulders and then the world became red and wet. Though she couldn't hear it, Kat and Dan screamed at the same time. The same animal cry of shock and horror tore out of their throat. The maser pulse had entered Nathan's body from behind and penetrated deep through flesh and bone until it encountered the concentrated blood vessels that surrounded the lungs. The microwave energy released caused the fluids of his body to vaporize in an explosive cascade of heat and energy. Individual cells bust as the expanding steam ruptured their membranes. The released steam mingled with the steam from other nearby cells and continued to expand further rupturing others, tearing a hole in the body's tissues, until eventually the pressure was more than the body could contain. The right side of Nathan's chest exploded in great bloody chunks. His right arm flew off into the darkness and what was left of his body collapsed forward into Kat's shocked embrace.

The whole battlefield went still. The effect was so shocking that everyone just stopped and stared in horror. Several Black Razors were sick in their armor. Kat spat blood and bits of Nathan from her mouth. She would be sick later but right now she was just…stunned. His golden eyes locked onto her face as his body began to shake. "I-I-I'm s-s-sor-r-ry," he managed to stammer.

"What were you thinking?" she whispered. "They can't hurt me."

"E-e-ener-g-gy. W-w-would have k-kill-killed you. I-I saw." His body's shakes were slowing. The blood pumping from the ruptured arteries had become a trickle.

"You can't-" Kat hugged him to her chest. "You just can't."

"It's-it's better this way." She felt his hand rest against her cheek. "P-promise me. Promise me."

"What?" Kat couldn't wipe the tears from her eyes. She wouldn't let him go. "Promise you what."

"N-not his fault. Didn't know. Promise me, you'll forgive him."

"Who?" Kat sat up so she could see his face. The bright gold of his eyes had faded and dimmed. His skin was the color of pale ash beneath the blood that smeared it. He took a long shuddering breath and then a calm settled over him. The light in his eyes flared strong once again.

"I lied, you know," he told her, "It wasn't just my future I could see. Another will come. I just wish it could have been me." The gold turned to yellow as the light left him for the final time. Nathan Lyons died the way he had lived – looking into the eyes of his destiny.

Jack Lynch had rarely been so stunned that he couldn't move. This was only the third time. It was his wife; his love, his soul, his beautiful Annie; that saved them. "Honey, I don't know what you are doing back there but we need to get out of here. I just picked up radio chatter from the Brazilian air force."

Jack shook himself back to life and hurried to Kat's side. "Caitlyn, we have to go," he whispered. "I'll take him." He tried to take Nathan's body but Kat just shook her head sharply and hugged him to her chest. She squeezed so tight Jack heard bones in the body cracking. "Come on, honey. You need to get him on the plane." A shot cracked off the side of the jet as they approached the ramp. Roxy and Grunge were holding each other at the top of the ramp. Her eyes were red with tears. Bobby and Sarah were at the bottom of the ramp. Sarah's face was buried in his shoulder. They jumped when the ricochet hit the jet.

Bobby pushed Sarah away from him and limped two steps away from the jet. He raised his hands like a triumphant gymnast but his face radiated pure fury. Directly in front of him sprang a column of white fire. It was as tall as a football field and the heat was unbelievable. It consumed the oxygen around it in a banshee wail of rushing air and glowed with a light so bright that it could be seen from space. As Bobby stared hard at the three Keepers down the road the column of fire shifted. At first Jack was afraid Bobby was going to attack them but instead the column swept around towards the tree line. Wherever the column went, it left a wall of fire behind it. The wall was half as tall as the column but just as hot. Once the plane was surrounded Bobby dropped his hands and hobbled up the ramp without a word.

Jack helped Kat into a seat at the back of the plane. She refused to surrender the body so he strapped both of them into the same seat. The others took seats in the front. He closed the ramp and felt the plane shudder as the engines revved. The air still screamed around them but somehow Annie held the plane steady as they rose, phoenix-like, out of the column of fire. Jack took a seat next to Kat. He could see Roxy peaking back at them, biting her lip in worry, but she didn't say anything. None of them said anything. The plane ride home was silent except for Kat's sobs.

"What happened?" Ivana was holding a hard copy photo of a severed arm. It was the largest piece of Nathan Lyons that they had recovered. They were seated in what Colby had come to think of as the "interrogation" boardroom. Ivana sat at the head of the table, he was seated on her left as the representative of operations. To her right sat Gerry Ruche. He was her current pawn of the moment but Colby knew all too well how quickly that could change. At the far end of the table sat the mission director, Carol Ferris and Doctor Ivery who was representing Research. Between them scattered along the table in organized chaos were the after-action reports, maps, and other paperwork associated with a failed mission. It was Ivery who spoke up to answer the question. He shuffled some papers in front of him and then cleared his throat.

"The maser was set on the fourth power setting but the weapon discharged at the highest power setting. The resulting vaporization of the water in the subject's cell structure caused a catastrophic structural failure." Doctor Ivery pushed his glasses back up his nose and continued. "If you will reference page fifteen of my report, you will see the cause was traced to a faulty systems chip. It appears the control code was corrupted. We have already pulled the chips for all the masers and are checking them. It appears to be a systemic problem so we are ordering replacements for all the chips currently in stock. The new chips should be available in three weeks."

"You've only been back two days, Doctor Ivery. That is remarkably fast work." Colby would deny it in public but he was something of a closet-techie. Tracking a fault in the thousands of lines of code in a control chip was no small feat. Not to mention ruling out all of the other potential causes for the fault.

"I knew this would be an issue once I heard Carol's after-action report. I made it a priority for my team. We had a number of issues we were looking at. This just happened to be at the top of the list. I hate to admit it but this wasn't the result of exemplary work, Director Colby," Ivery gave him a lopsided grin, "This time we just got lucky."

"So," Ivana said slowly, "you're saying this…Agent Grissom wasn't trying to blow our Gen into messy bits after all? It was just a glitch?"

Doctor Colby blanched. "Uhm…Yes ma'am. The fault in the chips resulted in any setting greater than three jumping straight to maximum power."

"I see." There was a long moment of silence. It was just long enough for Ivana to get the point across that she did not like this answer but she was willing to let it go – if it never happened again. She continued on, "The Brazilians are up in arms but we'll dump that on the usual suspects at Langley. What is the status of the teams?"

"Between the Black Razors, Keepers, and air crew we lost seventeen KIA and another twenty-two injured," Carol said. "Only two of our WIAs will not recover enough to return to active duty. I have placed agent Grissom on administrative leave pending the results of this investigation. The rest of the Keepers are being kept on site for training and refit."

"Colby," Ivana turned her attention to him, "what do you know of Grissom?"

"Not much," Colby answered immediately, "I've read Carol's report, of course."

"And what about her findings?" Ivana pressed. "Surely you have an opinion."

"Opinions are not facts, Madame Director." Colby kept a momentary pang of guilt from showing on his face. "That being said, the mall video clearly shows Fairchild waiting for agents Grissom and Watts to clear the vehicle before she throws the truck. We also have statements from Carol, Grissom, and Watts regarding the events at the house. Watts clearly admits that he missed his first shot with the maser – a shot of less than one hundred meters. While Grissom made his shot from a similar distance. Both men are expert marksmen but Watts leads Grissom in the standings on the range. I am not willing to say that Watts is a mole but I will admit that closer scrutiny would probably be appropriate."

"What about Grissom?" Ivana's porcelain face betrayed none of her inner thoughts. It never did. "They were partners."

Colby chose his words carefully. "Carol knows them best and she has already ruled Grissom out as a suspect. If you still have doubts we could move him onto my team where I can keep a close eye on him."

"I don't think so." Ivana replied. "He can stay where he is for now. Watch them both. Keep it quiet. If Watts is the mole then he might try to recruit Grissom or Grissom may notice something on his own. Either way, it will give him an opportunity to come forward and prove his innocence. Neither of them is high enough to know the details of the operations sufficient for the level of advanced planning we saw in Fortaleza. There has to be someone else higher on the food chain. Carol, I want you to make finding this person a priority. You'll report directly to me. If you need something you'll speak to me and only me. Do you understand?"

"Yes ma'am."

"Good. Don't disappoint me. I think we are done here." Ivana waived them away. "You can go now."

"How are they doing?" Jack asked as Annie slid under the covers of their bed.

"Eddie is lucky he had absorbed the structure of the concrete." She said as she rested her head lightly on her husband's chest. "He was hit three times in the lower back. If he had been normal flesh and blood at the very least he would have lost a kidney. As it was the bullets didn't penetrate very deep. I'll take the stitches out in a couple of weeks and he probably won't even have a scar."

"What about Caitlyn?"

"She's…" Annie hesitated, "she's hurting. Part of it is guilt, of course. She feels that Nathan gave his life for nothing."

"Did he?"

"I can't know for sure but from Bobby's description of the weapon they hit him with and what we know of Nathan's abilities, I doubt it. Caitlyn is resistant to energy attacks but not at the same level that she is to physical attacks. It is very probable that whatever the energy beam was – it could have easily killed her."

"Why didn't it kill Bobby?"

"I don't know," Annie sighed. "It could have been a heat based weapon and Bobby's powers partially protected him, it could have been a near miss, or it could have been something else entirely. There are just too many variables and too many unknowns for me to draw any reliable conclusions."

Jack sighed into her hair. "It isn't just survivor's guilt, is it?"

"No. He said something to her. At the end." Annie idly trailed her fingers along her husband's stomach. "She won't tell me what it was but I'm sure that is a large part of it."

"He told her he loved her." Jack said quietly.

"He did?" Annie sat up and looked him in the eye.

"Yes. He told her that he had seen her future too. That she would find someone else."

"Someone else?"

"To love."

"Why on earth would he tell her that?" Annie snapped.

"What?" Jack looked surprised at her strong reaction. "I guess he was trying to reassure her. Tell her not to worry."

"Men!" Annie let every ounce of her annoyance show in her voice. "Do you think that is going to help her? Do you know what a woman hears when a man we love says something like that?" She adopted an obviously fake masculine voice and said, "Don't worry, dear. I know you don't really love me because you are going to find someone else now that I am dead."

"Now, I don't think-" Jack started.

"That's the point!" Annie pounded her tiny fist against his chest. "You don't think. You just let her suffer the regret and the loss and then tell her she is wrong for feeling that because there are other fish in the sea!"

Annie's eyes were on the verge of tears. Jack smoothed the hair from her cheek and held her close. "I know," he told her softly, "I liked him too." He held his wife while she cried thinking of a young man who sacrificed his own life because it was 'the best possible option.'

**The End**


End file.
